Noun

emotions

1. Plural form of emotion.

Anagrams

• mooniest

Emotion is subjective experience, associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- (variant of ex-) means 'out' and movere means 'move'. The related term "motivation" is also derived from movere.

No definitive taxonomy of emotions exists, though numerous taxonomies have been proposed. Some categorizations include:

• 'Cognitive' versus 'non-cognitive' emotions
• Instinctual emotions (from the amygdala), versus cognitive emotions (from the prefrontal cortex).
• Basic versus complex: where base emotions lead to more complex ones.
• Categorization based on duration: Some emotions occur over a period of seconds (e.g. surprise) where others can last years (e.g. love).

A related distinction is between the emotion and the results of the emotion, principally behaviors and emotional expressions. People often behave in certain ways as a direct result of their emotional state, such as crying, fighting or fleeing. Yet again, if one can have the emotion without the corresponding behavior then we may consider the behavior not to be essential to the emotion. Neuroscientific research suggests there is a "magic quarter second" during which it's possible to catch a thought before it becomes an emotional reaction. In that instant, one can catch a feeling before allowing it to take hold.

The James-Lange theory posits that emotional experience is largely due to the experience of bodily changes. The functionalist approach to emotions (e.g. Nico Frijda) holds that emotions have evolved for a particular function, such as to keep the subject safe.

Emotions, in its most general definition, is a complex psychophysical process that arises spontaneously, rather than through conscious effort, and evokes either a positive or negative psychological response and physical expressions, often involuntary, related to feelings, perceptions or beliefs about elements, objects or relations between them, in reality or in the imagination. An emotion is often differentiated from a feeling.

• "It is complicated, stunning, it turns you upside down, but to find the person who completes you is the best sensation that someone may feel one day. It is like it was an encounter with your own, and as such, of course, it scares, it makes you think all your life over again; and you find out, at the end, that you were nothing before knowing the true love, and that, after it, you are past, you are annihilated if you don't have, even if it is for one single day, your special soul by your side."
  • Patricky Field