top of page
cropped11.jpg
Writer's pictureBrendon Hamblin

Just How Many Emotions Do We Actually Have?

People are dealing with a variety of emotions all the time, but while scientists used to believe there were only six real emotions – happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disgust – a new study has discovered that folks actually feel as much as 27 distinct emotions.

A study out of University of California, Berkeley involved more than 800 participants who were asked to rank their emotions after watching 30 short video clips, featuring scenes like births, babies, weddings, proposals, death, suffering, risky stunts, sexual acts, and more. In the end, the data pointed to 27 distinct emotions. They include:

  1. Admiration

  2. Adoration

  3. Aesthetic Appreciation

  4. Amusement

  5. Anxiety

  6. Awe

  7. Awkwardness

  8. Boredom

  9. Calmness

  10. Confusion

  11. Craving

  12. Disgust

  13. Empathetic pain

  14. Entrancement

  15. Envy

  16. Excitement

  17. Fear

  18. Horror

  19. Interest

  20. Joy

  21. Nostalgia

  22. Romance

  23. Sadness

  24. Satisfaction

  25. Sexual desire

  26. Sympathy

  27. Triumph

And if you can see a bit of an overlap with these emotions that’s because there are. The researchers note there are “smooth gradients of emotion” between some of them, adding that, “everything is interconnected.”

Comments


bottom of page