Emotions As Discrete Categories
Many theorists define some emotions as basic where others are complex. Basic emotions are claimed to be biologically fixed and therefore universal to all humans and many animals as well. Complex emotions are then either refined versions of basic emotions, culturally specific or idiosyncratic. A major issue is to define which emotions are basic and which are complex.
One of the problems here is that there is no consensus on the method by which basic emotions can be determined. Theorists and researchers can point to universals in recognizing facial expressions (e.g. Ekman), distinctive physiological symptoms (e.g. the blush of embarrassment), or labels common to different languages. Moreover there should be some plausible developmental story concerning how the various non-basic emotions can be grounded in the basic ones.
- The Li Chi: Joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking and liking (1st Century BC Chinese encyclopedia, cited in Russell 1991: 426).
- The Stoics: Pleasure/delight, distress, appetite and fear (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iv: 14-15).
- René Descartes: Wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness (Passions, 353).
- Baruch Spinoza: Pleasure, pain and desire (Ethics, pt. III, prop. 59).
- Thomas Hobbes: Appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy and grief (Leviathan, pt. I, ch. 6).
- Silvan Tomkins: Enjoyment/Joy, Interest/Excitement, Surprise/Startle, Anger/Rage, Contempt/Disgust, Distress/Anguish, Fear/Terror, Shame/Humiliation.
- Paul Ekman (1972): Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.
- Paul Ekman (1999): Amusement, anger, contempt, contentment, disgust, embarrassment, excitement, fear, guilt, happiness, pride in achievement, relief, sadness/distress, satisfaction, sensory pleasure, shame, and surprise.
- Jesse Prinz (2004): Frustration, panic, anxiety, physical disgust, separation distress, aversive self-consciousness, satisfaction, stimulation, and attachment.
Read more about this topic: Emotion Classification
Famous quotes containing the words emotions, discrete and/or categories:
“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“all the categories which we employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes, resolutions, and so on, can be applied to ... these latent states.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)