Emotions

Defining Emotion

In light of these obstacles to a precise definition, however, most researchers agree that emotions have the following characteristics. First, they include a subjective, experiential feeling state. This is the prototypical idea of an emotion: It is what we commonly refer to as feelings and what psychologists call affect. Second, emotions include a physiological component. Anger, for example, is associated with autonomic changes in areas such as heart rate and galvanic skin response. Third, emotions have a behavioral component. This includes expressive behavior as seen in facial and postural changes, and action tendencies (e.g., the tendency to recoil when experiencing fear). Finally, most definitions of emotion also include an evaluative component connecting the emotion to a specific person, object, or event. That is, emotions have a focus: We are angry at someone or sad about something.

It is this final component that is useful for distinguishing emotion from the closely related concept of mood. Moods are affective states, similar to the subjective, experiential feeling state of emotions. Moods also typically are of a longer duration, and are less intense, than emotions. But the primary feature that distinguishes emotions from moods is that unlike emotions, moods lack a specific focus. Moods are broad and diffuse, whereas emotions are associated with a person, object, or event that has been evaluated as significant for the individual. In distinguishing emotions from related concepts, it is useful to think in terms of a hierarchy, with affect, the subjective feeling state, as a broader, higher order category characteristic of both emotions and moods. If the affective state is accompanied by distinct physiological changes, behavioral tendencies, and a referent person, object, or event, it is most appropriate to classify it as an emotion.

Because emotion is a term lifted from common language, its use, even in the scientific literature, does not always match the definition provided here. Concepts such as emotion regulation, emotional contagion, and emotional labor often focus more on general affective states than on emotions per se. Thus, more technically correct terms might be affective regulation, mood contagion, or affective labor. For most uses of these concepts, however, the distinction between affect and emotion is relatively unimportant, and because these terms are well established in the literature, their use will continue.

Discrete Emotions versus Dimensions

There are two traditions in psychology for how to best conceptualize emotions. In one camp are those who argue for the existence of a small set (5 to 9) of discrete primary emotions. These typically include happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. Evidence for the existence of basic emotions is mostly drawn from studies showing the existence of distinct, specific, and universal (across cultures) emotional antecedents and responses. Particularly influential in this area is the work of Paul Ekman, whose research has demonstrated the existence of a small number of distinct, universal facial expressions of emotion. Across numerous cultures (Western and Eastern, modern and premodern), basic emotions such as fear are expressed in the face in the same manner and are universally recognized in pictures of facial expression. There have, however, been several influential critiques of the entire notion of basic emotions in recent years.

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