Can You Define Emotion?

We know what you're thinking: TLDR. But don't give up! It's a five-minute read - a thousand words to answer a very big question that has a very big impact on every aspect of your life:

Can you define "emotion?"

All of us will experience emotions all day, every day, for our entire lives. We readily describe events and experiences in terms of the emotions they evoked in us and others. We discuss emotional intelligence and lack thereof. We talk fluently about emotions all the time and we all seem to know intuitively what they are. But are we in agreement? What is an emotion, really? Are we all talking about the same thing? Can you define “emotion?”

If not, you are in good company. It turns out that emotions are complicated things, and clear definitions are hard to come by.  This topic — the nature, origin, and purpose of emotions — is extraordinarily complex. It is the subject of thousands of scientific studies and books. It is a topic that spans psychology, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and more, and our understanding of emotion is constantly evolving. While addressing the topic of emotion fully will not be remotely possible in this context, the scope and scale of inquiry alone tells us something about its importance. Still, despite centuries of intense research, the nature, origin, and meaning of our emotions is just not fully understood.

Where does that leave us?

How can we understand our own emotions and those of others — how can we become more emotionally intelligent — if we are not even sure what an emotion is in the first place?

First, let's set realistic expectations...

For our purposes, we do not require a definition that encompasses a deep scientific understanding of the bio-psycho-social mechanisms of emotion (which may not even be currently possible!). Rather, we need a definition that helps us better understand how our emotions and the emotions of others affect our real world, day-to-day experience. To that end, we can begin by looking at the word itself. Emotion comes from the Latin movere, “to move.” Emotions move us. They create in us an impulse to act. It is no coincidence that when an image, a piece of music, or a poem stirs our emotions, we describe it as “moving.”

Second, divide emotions into two categories...

It is helpful to divide emotions into two categories: basic and complex. There is a significant body of research supporting the theory that basic emotions are innate, shared across ages, languages, cultures, and even species. There are different views on how many basic emotions exist, but psychologist, professor, and author Robert Plutchik proposes eight: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, interest, surprise, acceptance, and joy. It is useful to start here, because it is easy to understand why these basic emotions evolved, how they helped us survive, and how they are connected to action - to movere, the impulse to move.

Eight Basic Emotions → Action / Survival Value

1. Fear → Run. There’s danger!
2. Anger → Fight!
3. Sadness → Help me. I’m hurt.
4. Disgust → Don’t eat that. It’s poison / harmful.
5. Interest → Let’s look around and explore.
6. Surprise → Watch out! Pay attention!
7. Acceptance → Stay with the group for safety.
8. Joy → Let’s cooperate; let’s reproduce.

Bring on the complexity...

From there, alongside the evolution of our large, thinking, reasoning brains came a lot more complexity. Complex emotions like guilt, love, awe, shame, grief, boredom, contempt, and so on probably emerged largely from the collision of the basic emotions with our thinking, language, and societies, as well as with other basic emotions. Love, Plutchik argues, combines joy and trust, while contempt combines anger and disgust. Unlike the basic emotions, complex emotions are not universal; they depend on context, learning, culture, and other factors. Yet this complexity does not mean they are less vital. Our complex emotions were and are essential to the emergence and functioning of our large, complex societies.

The key takeaway is this:

Our modern, complex emotions likely originated in innate, basic emotions, and those basic emotions are rooted in the solid ground of evolutionary biology. They appear to have served the most important purpose of all: survival of our species.

OK, emotions are important, but what are they?

Hopefully we have made a strong case as to why emotions are so important, but we still have not defined what they actually are.

Here, we find it useful to think of emotion not as a thing or a state, but as an essential part of the process by which we make sense of and interact with the world around us. Emotions carry information that cannot be expressed rationally. We instantly register fear in dangerous situations without being able to explain what made us afraid. Our modern circumstances are radically different from those in which our emotions evolved. We are therefore often right to pause and examine our emotions, but we make a grave mistake by ignoring them or valuing them somehow less than reason, because ultimately emotion and reason are not separable.

Antonio Damasio and others have famously observed the false dichotomy of reason vs. emotion in patients with brain injuries that rendered them incapable of feeling emotions. While their IQ remained intact, their decision-making was greatly impaired and they were unable to function normally in their daily lives. Their inability to experience emotion impaired their ability to reason. Without emotion, their thinking was incomplete. Likewise, we should assume that without thinking, our complex emotions are likewise incomplete. If we pay close attention, we can observe this in ourselves. Thoughts evoke emotions, and emotions shape our thoughts often all at once. They cannot be isolated.

Finally, to address that initial, difficult question, we offer the following definition:

In our everyday lives, we should understand our emotions as complex responses, experienced both cognitively and physiologically, that are an integral part of the overall process by which we make sense of and interact with the world and others around us. Emotion is fundamental to understanding, communicating, deciding, and acting in the world.

Thus, with that understanding of emotion, we can now ask why developing emotional intelligence is a worthwhile effort. It is worthwhile because greater emotional intelligence leads to better understanding, better communication, better decisions, and better actions. It leads to a better life for you, and for everyone around you.

Thanks for reading. Stayed tuned for more on emotional intelligence. And please pass this along if you know someone who might find value.