Our page on emotional intelligence talks about the importance of understanding emotions—both in ourselves and in others. It explains that being able to recognise and then manage our own emotions is a crucial part of emotional intelligence, and that emotional intelligence itself is an essential life skill. However, what do we really understand by the word emotion?

We talk about emotions and feelings, but are these actually the same? The answer, of course, depends on your precise definition. Another important question that many people have tried to answer over many years is whether we all share similar emotions or if there are cultural differences. This page unpicks some of these questions to explore what we mean by emotions.

Defining Emotions

There are many different definitions of the word emotion.

Our page on emotional intelligence defines an emotion as a feeling, a definition that chimes with many dictionary definitions. Similarly, dictionaries often define feeling as an emotional state (Oxford Languages) or simply emotion.

However, there is also a nuance in the definitions that is particularly drawn out by psychologists. An article published by Psychology Today suggests that:

• Emotions are the automatic and unconscious bodily reactions to stimuli; and

• Feelings are a conscious and subjective interpretation of those physical reactions.

The article goes on to state that this implies that emotions are universal, and feelings are culturally dependent.

A Set of Basic Emotions?

If emotions are universal, it ought to be possible to set out a list of ‘basic emotions’: ones that most people will recognise, wherever they live or were brought up.

Indeed, in 1872, Charles Darwin suggested that emotions were universal to the human species. Over many years since, researchers have tried to generate a list of core emotions, with varying degrees of success. For example:

• In 1890, William James suggested that there were four basic emotions: fear, grief, love and rage.

• In the latter half of the twentieth century, psychologist Paul Ekman carried out a series of studies and described six emotions that he believed were universally recognised from facial expressions. These were anger, disgust, fear, joy, loneliness, and surprise or shock.

• He later expanded his list of core emotions to include others that do not seem to be as clearly recognised from facial expressions. The newer emotions include amusement, happiness, embarrassment and guilt.

• In 1996, two other psychologists expanded the list to 15 emotions by adding, for example, anxiety, compassion and hope.

• A study from the University of California published in 2017 proposed 27 categories of emotions that were developed into a map.

• Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart sets out a full 87 emotions that she suggests define "what it means to be human". These are categorised by ‘where we go when...’. For example, “when things don’t go as planned”, we might experience disappointment, boredom, expectations, regret and/or discouragement.

This list makes clear that there is as yet very little agreement on whether there is genuinely a set of ‘core’ or ‘universal’ emotions—and if so, how many emotions are included in that list.

It is therefore worth exploring this idea a bit further.

An important question is how would we know if there was a ‘core’ set of emotions?

It is generally agreed that there are two aspects to this. The first is that these emotions would be used and recognised across cultures. The second is that there would be some clear distinctions in the brain chemistry or activity involved in generating these emotions. After all, if evolution had bothered to give us this set of universal emotions, there should be a physical basis to them.

Both of these seem to hold, at least to a certain extent, but only to a very small list of emotions.

1. Paul Ekman found considerable agreement across cultures in the recognition of his six basic emotions.

   His studies were largely in Eastern and Western literate cultures, which means that these emotions could have been learned from media depictions, rather than being innate. However, one study among people in Papua New Guinea who had not been exposed to any media depictions of emotions did suggest that these emotions could be more universal.

   This would chime with the idea that emotions are universal, but feelings are culturally dependent.

2. There is some emerging evidence of distinct brain patterns for the six basic emotions.

   It has proven difficult to identify distinct brain activity associated with particular emotions. However, a 2023 study from China suggested one possible reason for this. Most previous studies have looked at activity in particular areas of the brain. The researchers in that study found that functional connectivity patterns across regions of the brain were quite distinct for each of Ekman’s six basic emotions. This research is still relatively new, and more evidence is needed that its findings are accurate—but it is certainly compelling.

   There are, however, arguments against a large core list of emotions.

   These tend to focus on language and cultural issues. In particular, the language used around emotions, and how emotions are used and expressed across cultures, are quite different. Not all languages have words for the same emotions. For example, English has no word for the German concept of schadenfreude. Similarly, some cultures are happy to express particular emotions, and others emphasise the importance of keeping those emotions more hidden.

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Classifying Emotions

As well as proposals for a core set of emotions, there are also many possible classifications of emotions.

One helpful way to understand emotions is to consider the factors or characteristics that are common to different classifications of emotions.

A large number of models use the concepts of positive and negative emotions and apply these ideas across several different dimensions. The two most common dimensions are arousal (intensity of the emotion) and valence (the pleasantness of the emotion).

The circumplex model compares emotions by these two dimensions and plots them in a circle (Figure 1).

This therefore suggests that different emotions themselves are fundamentally associated with different levels of arousal and pleasantness. This would argue that there is a clear distinction between individual emotions like anger and irritation, or happiness and content. However, other people might say that these are simply the same emotion experienced to a greater or lesser degree. This may go some way to explaining why there are so many different lists of possible emotions!

The vector model uses the same dimensions, but plots them on a chart with valence on the y-axis and arousal on the x-axis (Figure 2).

This would suggest that the same emotion can be experienced or expressed to a greater or lesser degree. It also suggests that higher levels of arousal are generally associated with greater pleasure or pain, an inference that many of us might reasonably accept.

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (Figure 3) is a tool developed by psychologist Robert Plutchik to show how emotions are related.

Plutchik described eight primary emotions, which he defined as emotions that trigger behaviour with a high “survival value”—that is, these behaviours provide some evolutionary advantage. He explained that the eight could be divided into four pairs that were opposite each other. They could also be combined to form further emotions, and experienced to different levels of intensity—which also create further separate emotions.

This model is therefore a considerable extension of the others described. It accepts the ‘core emotions’, but also gives a reason why they exist. Alongside that, it provides far more names for different emotions, making it easier to articulate and describe particular levels of feeling.

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Drawing Conclusions

What conclusions can we draw about what we know about emotions?

First, there does seem to be a small list of about six emotions that are universally recognised, and that can be distinguished by clear patterns of brain activity. These are fear, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness and surprise.

For more about these emotions, you may be interested in our pages on Anger Management and Being Good Tempered (the ability to manage your anger so that it is appropriate), Improving Your Wellbeing (which talks about being happy) and Dealing with Bereavement and Grief (which discusses sadness in a particular context).

There are, however, far more emotions that can be described and experienced. Not all of these are clearly distinguished by facial expressions or even in every language or culture. This may make for some interesting cross-cultural communication difficulties.

It is possible that some of these ‘extra’ emotions are combinations of the basic or core emotions—or them being experienced to a greater or lesser extent. It seems unlikely that anyone will ever come up with a full list of emotions that is universally agreed. However, this has certainly not stopped anyone from trying to do so.

There also seem to be some clear distinctions between positive and negative emotions, whether in terms of intensity or pleasantness. We tend to want positive emotions, and talk about managing negative ones as something to be endured, rather than sought out.

However, it seems likely that both positive and negative feelings and emotions are necessary to us as humans.

The positive emotions may be pleasanter—but without the ‘darkness’ of the negative emotions, would we even appreciate that distinction?

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