BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

To clarify the concept of emotions, three definitions of various
aspects of emotions can be distinguished:
1. Emotion is a feeling that is private and subjective. Humans can
report an extraordinary range of states, which they can feel or experience.
Some reports are accompanied by obvious signs of enjoyment or distress,
but often these reports have no overt indicators. In many cases, the
emotions we note in ourselves seem to be blends of different states.
2. Emotion is a state of psychological arousal an expression or
display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses. This emphasis
suggests that emotional states can be defined by particular constellations
of bodily responses. Specifically, these responses involve autonomously
innervated visceral organs, like the heart or stomach.
3. Emotions are actions commonly "deemed", such as defending
or attacking in response to a threat. This aspect of emotion is especially
relevant to Darwin's point of view of the functional roles of emotion. He
said that emotions had an important survival role because they generated
actions to dangerous situations.
Some psychologists have tried to subdivide emotions in categories.
For example Wilhelm Wundt, the great nineteenth century psychologist,
offered the view that emotions consist of three basic dimensions, each one
of a pair of opposite states: pleasantness/unpleasantness, tension/release
and excitement/relaxation. However, this list has become more complex
over time. Plutchik suggests that there are eight basic emotions grouped in
four pairs of opposites:
1. joy/sadness
2. acceptance/disgust
3. anger/fear
4. surprise/anticipation
In Plutchik's view, all emotions are a combination of these basic
emotions, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of
human emotional experience.
Emotions differ not only accordingly to criteria of primary/secondary.
They can be distinguished after their occurrence in time. Some emotions occur
over a period of seconds (for example, surprise), whereas others can last years
(for example, love). The latter could be regarded also as a long term tendency
not as a proper emotion. A distinction is then made between emotion episodes
and emotional dispositions. Dispositions are also comparable to character
traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experience
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