List of emotions

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of emotions (feelings) felt by humans.

Robert Plutchik's theory[change | change source]

Robert Plutchik's theory defines that the eight basic emotions are:[1]

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions
  • Fear → feeling of being afraid, frightened, scared.
  • Anger → feeling angry. A stronger word for anger is rage.
  • Sadness → feeling sad. Other words are sorrow, grief (a stronger feeling, for example when someone has died).
  • Joy → the inward feeling of happiness that exists no matter the circumstance, whether good or bad.
  • Disgust → feeling something is wrong or nasty. Strong disapproval.[2]
  • Surprise → being unprepared for something.
  • Trust → a positive emotion; admiration is stronger; acceptance is weaker.
  • Anticipation → in the sense of looking forward positively to something which is going to happen. Expectation is more neutral.

Book Two of Aristotle's "Rhetoric"[change | change source]

This theory says that the emotions are:

  • Anger, opposite calmness (not feeling excited)
  • Friendship, is where people have a bond of joy and will come together and have fun
  • Fear, opposite courage (having courage in the face of fear)
  • Shame, opposite confidence (shame: how one feels about one's past bad actions or thoughts; shamelessness: one does not feel shame, but others think one should)
  • Kindness (benevolence), opposite cruelty (kindness: when people are good to other people)
  • Pity (when people feel sorry for other people)
  • Indignation (feeling angry because something is not fair, such as undeserved bad fortune)
  • Envy, jealousy (pain when people have something that one wishes for oneself)
  • Love, a strong emotion of attachment one feels for someone else. Ranges to family, pets, friends, significant others or fictional characters

Darwin's ideas[change | change source]

Charles Darwin's The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals was a landmark work which is still used as a source.[3] The following list is taken from the chapter-headings in the book.

The book is famous as being the first scientific book which used photographs as a major part of the evidence. Emotions, Darwin decided, were behavioural traits which evolved. He pointed out how the human face is adapted to show many of these emotions: it has muscles for facial movements which are not possible in other mammals. On the other hand, other mammals do have ways of showing many of these emotions.

Ekman has taken this idea a step further by studying the way people try to hide their emotions. He filmed the tell-tale glimpses of brief moments when true emotion is shown on a person's face.[4]

University of California, Berkeley[change | change source]

An academic study[5] using self-reporting of subjects distinguished 27 discrete emotions named as in the following list:

References[change | change source]

  1. Plutchik, Robert (1997-01-01). "The circumplex as a general model of the structure of emotions and personality.". Circumplex models of personality and emotions. American Psychological Association. pp. 17–45. doi:10.1037/10261-001. ISBN 1557983801.
  2. "Let's Talk About Different Types of Basic Emotions!". calmsage. 2020-04-26. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  3. Darwin Online: Expression of the emotions
  4. Ekman, Paul 2003. Emotions revealed: understanding faces and feelings. New York: Holt. (Edition consulted was ISBN 978-0-7538-1765-0)
  5. Keltner, Dacher; Cowen, Alan S. (2017-09-19). "Self-report captures 27 distinct categories of emotion bridged by continuous gradients". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (38): E7900–E7909. doi:10.1073/pnas.1702247114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5617253. PMID 28874542.

Other websites[change | change source]