There are many different types ofemotionsthat have an influence on how we live and interact with others.
At times, it may seem like we are ruled by these emotions.
Psychologists have also tried to identify the different types of emotions that people experience.
Verywell / JR Bee
A few different theories have emerged to categorize and explain the emotions that people feel.
What Human Emotion Are You?
Thisemotion quizwas medically reviewed by Rachel Goldman, PhD, FTOS.
The emotions he identified were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger.
Emotions can be combined to form different feelings, much like colors can be mixed to create other shades.
According to this theory, the more basic emotions act something like building blocks.
More complex, sometimes mixed emotions, are blendings of these more basic ones.
For example, basic emotions such as joy and trust can be combined to create love.
Rather than being entirely distinct, however, the researchers found that people experience these emotions along a gradient.
Like other emotions, sadness is something that all people experience from time to time.
In some cases, people can experience prolonged and severe periods of sadness that can turn intodepression.
Such behaviors can actually exacerbate feelings of sadness and prolong the duration of the emotion.
Fear
Fear is a powerful emotion that can also play an important role in survival.
This response helps ensure that you are prepared to deal with threats in your environment effectively.
Fear is the emotional response to an immediate threat.
Some people, on the other hand, actuallyseek out fear-provoking situations.
Eventually, feelings of fear begin to decrease.
Disgust
Disgust is another of the original six basic emotions described by Eckman.
Poor hygiene, infection, blood, rot, and death can also trigger a disgust response.
This may be the body’s way of avoiding things that may carry transmittable diseases.
Like fear, anger can affect the body’s fight-or-flight response.
Uncontrolled anger can quickly turn toaggression, abuse, or violence.
This key in of emotion can have bothmental and physical consequences.
Anger has been linked to coronary heart diseases and diabetes.
Surprise
Surprise is another of Eckman’s six basic types of human emotions.
It is usually quite brief and characterized by a physiological startle response following something unexpected.
This jot down of emotion can be positive, negative, or neutral.
Surprise can have important effects on human behavior.
For example, research has shown that people tend to disproportionately notice surprising events.
This is why surprising and unusual events in the news tend to stand out in memory more than others.
Eckman’s theory suggests that these core emotions are universal throughout cultures all over the world.
For example, some researchers have suggested that there are only two or three basic emotions.
Love, for example, consists ofsecondary emotions, such as affection and longing.
These secondary emotions might then be broken down still further into what are known astertiary emotions.
The secondary emotion of affection includes tertiary emotions, such as liking, caring, compassion, and tenderness.
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.
By building a better understanding of these states, he hopes that researchers can develop improved treatments forpsychiatric conditions.
It is important to remember, however, that no emotion is an island.
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