A Brief Overview of the Six Basic Emotions
Emotions are powerful. They sway our decisions, influencing our actions, and change our bodies (Gouizi, Bereksi, & Maaoui, 2011) (Johnston & Olson, 2018). There are six emotions that make up the global emotional language (Johnston & Olson, 2018). This means that regardless of one’s culture or location a human can recognize, describe, and express any of these six basic emotions. The existence of the basic global emotional language is agreed upon by multiple psychologists but there are slight variances in the names assigned to each of the six basic emotions (Johnston & Olson, 2018). In this writing, the six basic emotions will be identified as Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Surprise. Please prepare yourself to journey with me to discover how our bodies respond physically to Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Surprise. The innate nature of these emotions causes their effect to go overlooked. Understanding these emotions and how they affect the body can improve global communication and quality of life. The following provides a base for understanding the six basic emotions concerning the physical reactions they incur.
Anger is defined as “a feeling of great hostility, displeasure, or exasperation … [, exhibited through mental and physical processes derived from thoughts,] values, and expectations, ….” (Singer & Sanford, 2018). People tend to feel angered when their beliefs are challenged or when there is the identification of a misdeed that requires retribution. Anger enhances the function of the circulatory and respiratory systems. This enhancement improves sensory ability and increases the processing rate of information signals and nutrients to ensure quicker physical response in a fight or flight situation (Singer & Sanford, 2018). As humans evolve to depend more on intellect, anger becomes less necessary for human survival.
Fear is another emotion that’s main purpose is to serve survival needs. When comparing anger and fear with the fight-or-flight response model, anger is the fight response, and fear best serves flight. Just like anger, fear triggers the secretion of hormones that signal the body’s less-essential systems to slow down; improving the functionality of the respiratory and circulatory systems (Regents of the University of Minnesota, 2016). Long-term exposure to fear causes mental health problems, cardiovascular damage, decreased immune system function, gastrointestinal problems, infertility, obesity, premature aging, and death (Lemonick, Cary, & Dan, 2005). Long-term fear is often exhibited by individuals with anxiety and PTSD. People with these conditions should seek professional treatment to improve their quality of life.
Surprise is the socially advanced version of fear. It is the response to information being suddenly received that contrasts assumption or previous information (Meinzer & Raphael, 2015) (PsychologyDictionary.org, 2013). Intense surprise increases heart rate and blood pressure causing the body to “freeze” for up to 1/25th of a second leading to shortness of breath. (Meinzer & Raphael, 2015). Surprise is not directly linked to the fight-or-flight response like fear and anger are. Surprise does prepare the body for the survival response by increasing functions of the cardiovascular system, but the momentary freeze allows the brain to process information so that the following reaction is a tune with the situation. The primary function of surprise is to inform the individual of their inaccuracy and inspire curiosity to investigate (Meinzer & Raphael, 2015). The functionality of surprise makes it an important part of the human learning process. One could consider surprise to be the mind’s defense against chronic inaccuracy.
Disgust is the body’s defense against potential internal threats. (McCauliffe, 2019). Researchers have associated decreased heart rate, gag reflex sensitivity, increased oral and nasal stimulation, and nausea as physical responses to disgust. (Oum, 2010) (Schnall, 2017) (Simon, Meuret, & Ritz, 2017) (Stevenson, et al., 2015). These reactions precaution the body to avoid or reverse the ingestion of contaminated substances. The social benefits of these reactions have yet to be soundly determined. However, the evidence is present correlating disgust to conformity to authority, distrustfulness of outsiders, religious activism, and traditionalism (McCauliffe, 2019). These correlations suggest that disgust helps humans’ function within their social groups and supports adherence to social hierarchy.
Sadness is another advanced basic emotion and it is difficult to define. The body’s response to sadness is contradictory to the other five basic emotions (Vidmar, Pittala, Rewais, McLaughlin, & Bond, 2019). Sadness study participants often report a feeling of heaviness, lack of motivation, fatigue, restlessness, chest pain, and an overall sense of helplessness or lack of control (Shirai & Suzuki, 2017) (Vidmar, et. al, 2019). The most common physiological reactions of sadness are tears, change in heart rate, and muscle tension in the chest (Shirai & Suzuki, 2017). Sadness responses are contradictory to the fight-or-flight response because the purpose of sadness is to manage an individual’s quality of life to indirectly improve the survival rate. Sadness is considered the motivating factor for joyful action (Vidmar, et. al, 2019).
Joy is an encompassment of good feelings that provoke a person to preserve their current state or act toward a goal they look forward to achieving (Lemonick, Cary, & Dan, 2005). Joy is associated with a positive physical state and adequate health maintenance. (Lemonick, Cary, & Dan, 2005). Joy improves immune system functionality, decision-making skills, goal accomplishment prioritization, and empathy. (Lemonick, Cary, & Dan, 2005). Individuals who regularly experience joy are more likely to participate in an exercise, regular medical checkups, good hygiene, and have healthier eating habits. Joy is a necessary emotion for human survival and regular joy encourages one to live a fulfilling life.
This writing has successfully defined each of the six basic emotions concerning the physical responses they inspire in human beings. But, more importantly, this document is meant to be a basis for emotional self-knowledge because emotional self-awareness leads to a brighter and more emotionally mature future (Janocha, et al., 2018)
References
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