Types of Emotion

No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending. So it is not surprising that most of the great classical philosophers--Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume--had recognizable theories of emotion, conceived as responses to certain sorts of events of concern to a subject, triggering bodily changes and typically motivating characteristic behavior. What is surprising is that in much of the twentieth-century philosophers of mind and psychologists tended to neglect them--perhaps because the sheer variety of phenomena covered by the word "emotion" and its closest neighbors tends to discourage tidy theory. In recent years, however, emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science. In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researches of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology and evolutionary biology. While it is quite impossible to do justice to those approaches here, some sidelong glances in their direction will aim to suggest their philosophical importance. 

According to Robert Plutchik, humans and animals experience eight basic categories of emotions that motivate adaptive behaviour : fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, and acceptance. These are arranged in order in a circle, with adjacent emotions (eg. fear and surprise) being functionally alike and opposing emotions (eg. fear and anger) being functionally opposite. In addition, emotions can combine to produce new hybrid emotions.

For example, joy + acceptance = love ; surprise + sadness = disappointment 

In Plutchik's model, emotions can vary in intensity as well. For example, the most intense form of anger is rage, and the least intense form of anger is annoyance. Plutchik's model has been applied to observations of emotional development in young children in determining the functions and effectiveness of different types of emotions.




Two FrogsA group of frogs were travelling through the woods, and two of them
fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit
was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The
two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit
with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop,
that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took
heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down
and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again,
the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He
jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the
other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?"

The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.

Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. The power of words... it is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special is the individual who will take the time to encourage another.