Basic emotions list pdf

What are emotions? What are the theories behind emotions? And how do you describe different emotions? Learn all about emotions here and get lists of emotions for adults or kids.

List of Emotions: 271 Emotion Words (+ PDF)

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List of Emotions (According to the Discrete Emotion Theory)

There are a few theories of emotion that help organize different emotions and help us understand how they relate to each other. The most well-known of these theories is the discrete (or basic) theory of emotion. This was the theory used in the movie Inside Out. The basic premise is that emotions are separate, discrete things and that they are basic because they originate from having to deal with fundamental life tasks like running away from a predator (Ekman, 1999).

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List of Emotions and Definitions

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List of Emotions (According to the Circumplex Emotion Theory)

Although the basic theory of emotion makes some sense, others have argued that emotions are not discrete things. They don't have specific locations in the brain, they almost always co-occur with each other, and there are many blends of emotions. Reasons like these led psychologists to develop the Emotion Circumplex Model (Russell, 1980).

This model suggests that emotions can be mapped in a circle. These are two axes: one axis is from high to low energy; the other axis is from high to low pleasure. Early researchers believed any emotion could be mapped on this circle. However, more recent research has suggested that there may be more than two dimensions required to understand and map emotions. For example, one study suggested that mapping emotions on how controllable and useful they are is helpful. Plus, this adds two additional dimensions (Trnka et al., 2016). Basically, the only thing we really know for certain about emotions is that they are complex.

Here is a list of emotions from the Emotion Circumplex Model:

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List of Emotions (From Plutnik's Wheel of Emotions)

Another well-known model of emotions is Plutnik's wheel. This wheel suggests that there are primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions. Each of the emotions in the wheel can be combined to create new emotions. Here is a list of emotions from Plutnik's model:

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List of Positive Emotions

Positive emotions are pleasant or desirable states. When we think of positive emotions, we often think of happiness. But positive emotions include so much more than that. They range from high-energy emotions like excitement to low-energy positive emotions like calmness. The extent to which we find these emotional states pleasurable depends on us. Some of us prefer excitement to calmness and some of us prefer the opposite. And some have suggested that there are genetic underpinnings to these preferences (e.g., the COMT gene).

List of Negative Emotions

Negative emotions are unpleasant or undesirable states. But, just because they are unpleasurable doesn't mean they are unhelpful. Negative emotions help us do important things in our lives. For example, fear helps us escape from a tiger, anger helps us stand up for our own needs, and sadness helps us take a step back or seek social support. We need negative emotions just as much as we need positive emotions. When it comes to our well-being, we just need to learn how to regulate emotions in effective ways.

Complete List of Emotions

There are a variety of other theories and lists of emotions. We've attempted to synthesize them here to give you a complete alphabetical list of emotions. (You can download this as a printable list below.)