The word emotion is derived from the latin word ‘emovere’, which means to stir up or to move. An emotion refers to an involuntary, aroused state of an organism involving physical, cognitive and behavioural components. It is described as a combination of bodily arousal, e.g., increased heartrate, thoughts and feelings, i.e. emotional tone and expressive behaviour i.e. facial expression. Some characteristics of emotions are
1. Emotions may be positive, e.g., joy or negative, e.g., anger.
2. Emotions may occur for a brief period or may be long lasting.
3. Emotions may be important for our survival, e.g., fear or for our psychological well-being, e.g., love.
4. Emotions differ in intensity in expression for e.g., annoyance-anger rage.
5. Complex emotions (higher cognitive level emotions) result from the combination of basic emotions, for e.g., surprise and sadness lead to disappointment.
6. According to Ekman, there are six basic (universal) types of emotions, i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust.
