Experience help: How many kinds of emotions do human beings experience and what is the difference between the positive and negative emotions? - Help.com

I think most of emotions are the same ones, just in a different way. Love and Hate feel almost the same, just with a different outcome. I think the only difference between the good ones and the bad ones is just that some make you feel better and some don’t.

Emotions are not good or bad in and of themselves. They can have affects which are interpreted either way, but they all play an essential role.

Life wouldn’t be as much fun with the down parts to completely contrast the good things.
But think of every day of your life. I’m pretty sure over 50% of those days you’ve felt your mood to be at least 6/10…

Envy - motivates people to achieve more
anger - drives people to justice
pride - the purpose for which we accomplish things
gluttony - appreciation for a fine meal
vanity - the motivation to stop eating like a pig and get back into shape
greed - drives most of the accomplishment in this world. Motivates.
Fear - protects us from danger, or possible danger
lust - attracts us to others, sometimes leading to love, based on the instinct which has allowed our species to propagate

These are some examples of the silver lining I see in some of our “negative” emotions.

NOw another line of speculation:
If we had no pain, how would we truly appreciate pleasure?
If we had no loss, how would we truly appreciate what we have?
If we had no death, where would the value be in life?
If everything were always rosy and perfect, would we even believe it were real?
If some people or things didn’t truly disturb us enough that we felt such repulsion towards them that we have come to know as hate, how would we truly be able to know love? If we loved everyone equally, wouldn’t that cheapen the love of a truly deserving partner, of family member we have come to know better?

Have all your emotions now, because there is nothing after death.

I agree with you though. I am very much aware that the emotions I listed have a very negative side to them. That is the main side most people are aware of.

A good reaction to this is the flight or flight response. A long time ago, when homosapiens were making their first mark on the world, people only had to deal with problems for a short period of time. A caveman could get attacked by a wild animal, in which case fear would set off his adrenaline such that he could fend off the attack and survive. When the danger was gone, his emotions would return to a relatively stable level. Fear also played a role in protecting people, especially kids. Why do you think kids are afraid of the dark? If the children of our ancestors ventured off into the woods alone at night they would be in great danger.

The situations we are faced with nowadays go very counter to how our instincts were programmed. When the threat that we are fearful of does not go away, e.g. an abusive parent, or a stressful work environment, our body constantly triggers our fight or flight response, until we burn out (emotionally) and break down.

If you are experiencing phobias, or constant fear that is controlling your life you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder. There is treatment. Psychologists do have treatments.

About Psychologists and Psychiatrists. It has been my experience that they do have their beliefs, and their own human flaws. They are however given training based on empirical facts, and their job is that of a doctor, to heal. While they do have the capacity to be manipulative, that isn’t their purpose. Priests and Pastors are entirely different, and are unfit to be lumped into the same category.

Anyway, regarding getting treatment. Some doctors aren’t very good, and (no offense intended) where you live is hardly where I would expect to find great psychotherapists. However you should probably base your course of action on known facts, and see if that works first. The most important thing in my opinion is to understand the problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemat…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitiv…

If you do some research online or from books, you may find some things you can do to help alleviate your fears on your own. And aside from science there is also tried and true advice, like facing your fears, or that what is understood is often less scary.

Regarding death, it is not well understood, no-one can experience it and come back to tell us what its like. This is why there is so much baloney on the subject. There is no evidence that spirit can exist without matter (the brain). In fact the evidence points the other way. When a part of someone’s brain is removed or damaged their entire personality can become completely different.

Nice post :)

I think there are lots of emotions. Here are just some:

Acceptance
Agitation
Alarm
Amusement
Anger
Angst
Annoyance
Anticipation
Apprehension
Apathy
Arrogance
Awe
Anxious
Bitterness
Boredom
Calmness
Cautiousness
Comfort
Contentment
Confidence
Courage
Depression
Determination
Disappointment
Discontentment
Disgust
Desire
Delight
Elation or Euphoria
Embarrassment
Envy
Ecstasy
Fear
Friendship
Frustration
Glee
Gratitude
Grief
Guilt
Hate
Happiness
Homesickness
Hope
Horror
Humility
Impatience
Inadequacy
Irritability
Joy
Jealousy
Kindness
Loneliness
Love
Lust
Melancholy
Nervousness
Negativity
Nostalgia
Pain
Paranoia
Peace
Pity
Pride
Rage
Regret
Remorse
Resentment
Sadness
Self-pity
Shame
Shyness
Sorrow
Shock
Suffering
Surprise
Suspense
Thrill
Torment
Unhappiness
Vulnerability
Worry
Yearning
Zest

Many of those, though, can be grouped together.

According to this chart I found, there are 5 basic human emotions agreed on by psychologists: Fear, Anger, Disgust, Surprise, and Joy and there are 12 possible emotions in existence.

Emotions have positive or negative effects. I think that if an effect of an emotion is generally negative, that’s when people say it’s a negative emotion. Or when an emotion’s effect is positive, it’s a positive emotion. In my opinion anyway.

Like looking at what Betta said, anything can be viewed as positive, just by changing your perspective. And things could be viewed the other way, too. You could change positive emotions into negative ones. Just because humans are not perfect. Someone could take what most people consider a positive emotion and make it negative.

Bologna, ok there, you nitpicker. Choose to misinterpret what I said about the brain as empirical evidence that spirit cannot exist without matter if you wish.

you’re welcome.

thank you for making this post :)

I found this post so interesting that I joined up and will start my own post on the subject (I think it could / should be endless!)

I just wanted to add a comment here on perspective though (initially brought up by betta, I think), as I believe it to be one of the major forces of our lives …so this is my perspective here ;-)

There appeared to be some (con)tension between ‘charm’ and ‘betta’ on the subject of death and medical doctors for the mind/psyche vs those of ‘the cloth’.

On the matter of death, who knows? There are those that have said they’ve experienced death through actual experience or through paranormal experience. If you look through history, some of those doctors have done more to harm people than to help, while some priests/ministers/pastors/shamen, etc have a better understanding of human nature and have helped many.

Now, I’m being contentious here, as I’m not in the least, what others would label Religious, I have NO idea what my stance on death is (haven’t really thought about it, been to busy living!) and I do believe that there are psychologists/psychiatrists/therapists out there who can effectively help individuals …but there’s another one of my ‘keywords’ …individual.

What it all comes down to is what an individual believes and has faith in. This is first and foremost what forms our perspective, though certainly by no means the only influencing factors for Perspective! Belief and Faith are extremely potent factors in creating Perspective and can be augmented serverely by other factors. With all of these ‘factors’, we can each be none other than an individual. Whether we follow a herd mentality or are loners doesn’t matter, we are STILL individuals, who will feel and believe based on our individuality.

Sorry about my verbal diarrhea lol, but all this is to say that the answer to this question can only lie for each of us within ourselves, because it’s a different answer for each of us depending on who/what we are, how we think, how we feel, which is different for each individual and when it comes down to it, the ‘right’ answer isn’t what matters, it’s what we believe is ‘right’ and what IS right for us.

I’m going to start my post now and title it, ‘Searching for Information on Emotions / Feelings’ …and I think I’ll start another on ‘Belief: How has belief helped to shape your life (positively or negatively)?’ Hope to hear everyone’s input.

Thanks and take care!
John

If no-one has said it already, our emotions can motivate us so its imparative we dont suppress or deny them or we lose hope hence-the ones who ‘cut’ for instance

Please consider, there are languages that have words for emotions we have no word for. Our language is still in its infancy. Part of the role of psychology/psychiatry is to begin defining what these emotions are and what to name them in english.

I think that to define separate emotions one would have to look at the chemicals that are emotions. I also feel that the area of the brain is of importance but secondary to the chemical because the same chemical could have a different outcome depending on area of the brain.

Not trying to be a jerk, but for the sake of disclosure and honesty which there seems to be little of on the internet with the rise of anonymity, DR. Foreman what do you have a doctorate in?. I find it doubtful you got a doctorate in anything speaking like a ditsy high school girl, is English not your first language?. There are limitations to human emotions, that is not to say that new emotions can’t be induced by adding foreign elements, or that emotions and neuro-chemistry can’t evolve, because likely they will.

so if emotions are so objective then why are there so many miscommunications? emotions are subjective and specific to the inidvidual. Individuals have differing experiences and that contribute to brain coordination (neuroconnections)basically how we take in different experiences also depends on what we are conditioned to

so subjective emotions are only good to give us warnings or inclinations of our experiences..
umm ..this thing is good for me…or this thing is bad for me…or this thing needs caution….this thing needs futher looking into –maybe i can fix something here.

so emotions are kind of like the little light that goes off in your car when your oil is low, or tire pressure is low…. it is a just a navigation tool for finding our way through interactions with the outside world.
\

Depression—telling you your needs are not being met…

someone seeing you depressed….should see what need is not being met….or that someone may just ignore you and choose not to be around..

always ask WHY….

We are “programed” to sustain life:
Again the example above is telling you there is a “disturbance in the force”…emotions are just indicators and let you know that need to make a choice for your survival or others survival

…stay where your at (happy ,”feel good”, satisfied); or fix it so you can survive (run away, replace, accept, get rid of, kill, reconcile, gather support from others..ect).

The more intense the feeling the more you need to pay attention to what choices you have and how your choices affect those around you.
In other words dont let your emotions become an end of itself…satisfing them to quinch it..
But use them to help indicate what is going on around you or clue in on what is going on in your psyche.
Use them to help,
understand that you need to examine choices,
by doing this you can control them so they dont control you.