Toward Defining Basic Emotions

Abstract

This essay proposes a group of six basic emotions defined as concepts for scholarly use. Such a step seems to be needed because of the present chaos of emotion terminology. The public and most scientific studies use vernacular terms, even though they are extremely ambiguous and misleading. Both the public and scholars also seem to be caught up in a mass of assumptions and avoidances. To illustrate steps toward clarity, four forward-looking studies of shame, the least understood emotion, are described (Norbert Elias, Helen Lewis, Michael Billig, and my Ngram study). The last step is autobiographical, describing how my personal experiences introduced me to my own hidden emotions and, after many years of study, to my interest in shame and a preliminary set of emotion definitions. Perhaps one reason the field is still chaotic is that researchers need more contact with their own emotions.