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Concept
Discrete emotion theory
Summary
Discrete emotion theory is the claim that there is a small number of core emotions. For example, Silvan Tomkins (1962, 1963) concluded that there are nine basic affects which correspond with what we come to know as emotions: interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, fear, anger, shame, dissmell (reaction to bad smell) and disgust. More recently, Carroll Izard at the University of Delaware factor analytically delineated 12 discrete emotions labeled: Interest, Joy, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Self-Hostility, Fear, Shame, Shyness, and Guilt (as measured via his Differential Emotions Scale or DES-IV).
Discrete emotion theory states that these specific core emotions are biologically determined emotional responses whose expression and recognition is fundamentally the same for all individuals regardless of ethnic or cultural differences.
The biological and physiological underpinnings of emotions were discussed by Aristotle in De Anima, by Charles Darwin in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), by William James (1884), and by John Dewey (1895).
Tomkins' (1962, 1963) idea was influenced by Darwin's concept. He proposed that there is a limited number of inborn basic "affect programs": surprise, interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy, anger-rage, fear-terror, shame-humiliation, distress-anguish, disgust, dissmell. These affects are not necessarily recognizable consciously, but they become recognizable as emotions when they combine meaningfully with personal and cultural experience.
John Watson believed that emotions could be described in physical states.
Edwin Newman and colleagues believed emotions were a combination of one's experiences, physiology, and behaviour.
Ross Buck came up with the facial feedback hypothesis, "that skeletal muscle feedback from facial expressions plays a causal role in regulating emotional experience and behaviour".
After performing a series of cross-cultural studies, Paul Ekman and Carroll Izard reported that there are various similarities in the way people across the world produce and recognize the facial expressions of at least six emotions.
Official source
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