The 16 Types Of Feelings And Their Psychological Function
Human beings experience a multitude of feelings almost without realizing it: I feel happy, bored or confident are some examples. The term feeling can be confused with emotion, and although these are related, they are not exactly the same.
In this article We will talk about what feelings are and how we can recognize them
Some of you may have wondered what differentiates an emotion from a feeling. Well, to understand this difference we can extract a fragment from the book “Descartes’ Error” by Antonio Damasio. The author is a researcher who has paid much importance to emotions and feelings in social behavior and even in reasoning.
For Damasio: “When you experience an emotion, for example the emotion of fear, there is a stimulus that has the ability to trigger an automatic reaction. And this reaction, of course, starts in the brain, but then goes on to be reflected in the body, either in the real body or in our internal simulation of the body. And then we have the possibility of projecting that specific reaction with various ideas that relate to those reactions and to the object that caused the reaction. “When we perceive all that is when we have a feeling.”
So the feelings are the way in which we relate to that emotional aspect of our mind, the narratives we establish about it and the way in which we respond to these experiential situations.
Theoretically, then, feelings and emotions are differentiated from each other by the different relationships that both have with consciousness and with higher psychological processes: feelings start from abstract ideas and consciously directed thought, while emotions are not.
An example about emotions and feelings
In short, emotion would be the first reaction we experience when faced with a stimulus and it has to do with the limbic system. And the feeling would be the result of an emotion, and it has its origin in the neocortex, specifically in the frontal lobe. The response to a feeling can be physical and/or mental, and is mediated by neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin. In addition,Feelings last longer than emotions, since their duration is proportional to the time we think about them
In our daily lives, feelings manifest themselves all the time, for example: We are at work, our boss comes up to us and tells us to accompany him to the office. There, he tells us that management doesn’t like our work and is firing us. Almost constantly fear takes over us, which would be emotion.
Right after, we analyze the situation and ask ourselves a series of questions: “Why me? What have I done wrong?” and we begin to experience sadness and pity for having to leave our job, anger, inferiority, uncertainty about the future, etc. This second reaction, modified by our conscious thoughts, would be a feeling.
The components of emotion
It should be said, however, that the debate between feeling and emotion goes back a long way and has been a controversial topic, since they are terms that are often confused and used interchangeably. One of the first authors to talk about emotions and feelings was Richard S. Lazarus, who stated that these two concepts are interrelated. The feeling would be part of the emotion, since it is its subjective component, that is, cognitive
Emotions, which originate in the limbic system of the brain, are complex states in which different components intervene:
For Carlson and Hatfield. Feeling is the subjective experience of emotion. That is, the feeling would be the combination of the instinctive and brief emotion, along with the thought that we rationally obtain from that emotion.
16 feelings we experience
There are many feelings that human beings experience. Below we present a list of 16 very frequent feelings:
positive feelings
These feelings lead to more positive behavior:
1. Euphoria: This feeling makes us feel high and our perception of life is magnificent.
2. Admiration: when we look at something or someone in a positive way.
3. Keen: It is a pleasant feeling when connecting with someone.
4. Optimism: We perceive life positively and without fear of facing it.
5. Gratitude: We feel grateful for someone.
6. Satisfaction: A feeling of well-being about something that has happened.
7. Love: A complex feeling that expresses the best of ourselves.
8. Liking: Something gives us pleasure.
Negative feelings
They are feelings that we experience in an unpleasant way:
9. Anger: It is a feeling of dislike or bad disposition towards someone or something
10. Hate: A strong feeling of revulsion towards a person
11. Sadness: A negative state that causes discomfort with a tendency to cry
12. Indignation: Discomfort at something that is considered unfair
13. Impatience: Feeling of needing something now.
14. Envy: Feeling that occurs when wanting something that you do not have and that another person has.
fifteen. Revenge: Desire to take revenge, but it does not necessarily have to be carried out.
16. Jealousy: feeling that arises when thinking that you are going to lose someone you love.
The importance of managing feelings for emotional health
One of the most important topics in psychology today is emotional intelligence Although we usually talk about emotions, in reality it refers to feelings. The correct management of feelings, that is, for example, self-knowledge or regulation, provides many benefits for people both in their mental well-being and in their performance, whether at work, educational or sports.
