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CLASSIFICATION OF EMOTIONS

For greater understanding of the nature of emotions it is good to classify them. There are many classifications of emotions. Classification is required for the sake of reducing the varieties of emotions. The classification should clarify the nature of each emotion and its relationship to others. In this chapter I would like to follow a comprehensive classification done by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev.

VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS

One of the classifications is by referring either to 1. our own state, or 2. the emotional object. When we classify emotions in terms of our own state, we are doing it by the feeling dimension. In this case we may classify emotions by virtue of their being species of joy or sorrow, by diving them into calm and violent emotions or by the proportion they contain of the two main aspects of the feeling dimension which are pleasure-displeasure and arousal-calmness. Here definitely the intentional dimension, which will refer to the emotional object, is missing. Therefore several attempts were made taking into account the emotional object and thus they contain the intentional components of emotions. One such classification categorizes emotions into ‘backward-looking’ (anger and shame) and ‘forward-looking’ (fear and hope). Most emotions are of course backward-looking emotions in that the eliciting event has already occurred. Forward-looking emotions focus on the future event. But emotions like love and sexual desire contain elements of both groups and cannot be said to belong to one particular category. Therefore one classification categorized emotions as retrospective, immediate and prospective emotions. This classification though good in itself is limited because the temporal criterion used is not central to emotional experience. What is more important in emotions is the eliciting event with significance.

Positive-Negative Attitudes

The classification presented not only determined by one’s positive or negative attitude but also by the multiple types of objects characteristic of emotional evaluations. The emotional object is a certain actual or fictional agent who may be another person (or another living creature in general), or the individual experiencing the emotion. Since the agents are the emotional objects, emotions may be sorted into three groups according to 1. fortunes of agents, 2. actions of agents, and 3. the agent as a whole. Each of these groups can be further divided into emotions directed at other agents and at oneself. These groups are supposed to express three basic patterns involved in evaluating agents: 1. desirability of the agent’s situation; 2. praiseworthiness of the agent’s specific actions; 3. appealiangness of the agent. These three evaluative patterns are sometimes interdependent. Desirability my depend on praiseworthiness and appealingness; appealingness sometimes may depend on desirability. Not only the nature of the emotion in question but also their intensity is determined by these three basic evaluative patterns. 1.95-96

Major Evaluative Patterns

The major evaluative pattern in the group of emotions directed at the fortune of agents is the desirability of the given situation.  This is again divided into emotions directed at others and those directed at oneself and again divided into those directed at the bad or good fortune of others and those directed at actual or possible fortunes for ourselves. These can be either positive or negative emotions. The major evaluative pattern in the second group of emotions directed at specific actions of agents deals with the approval or disapproval. (praiseworthiness) of these actions. Again they can be ones directed towards oneself or others and they in turn can be either positive or negative.  The major evaluative pattern in the third group of emotions directed at the agent as a whole is its attractiveness or repulsiveness. This group of emotions includes comprehensive evaluation of the agent. Here again they can be divided into emotions directed at oneself or others, which in turn are divided into positive or negative. Another subgroup of emotions directed at the agent as a whole is supposed to be more primitive emotions, which are mere attraction and repulsion.  1.97-98, 75.99-110

BASIC AND NONBASIC EMOTIONS

Classification into basic and nonbasic emotions is seen as central by many theorists. ‘Basic’ means simple, as opposed to complex. Any emotion is a simple irreducible emotion, or it can be analysed as a simple emotion plus ‘something,’ where ‘something’ is either another emotion or some nonemotional element. For example, embarrassment might be analysed as fear plus anger or, alternatively, fear plus the self-evaluation of being the object of unwanted attention. Criteria for simple or basic emotions vary from one theory to another. Nevertheless the following list shows representative criteria for considering some emotions as basic: 1. development - early emergence in human evolutionary or individual development; 2. function - possession of functional value related to basic forms of action tendencies in individual and reproductive survival; 3. universality - universality among humans; 4. prevalence - most frequent occurrence as compared to other emotions; 5. uniqueness - possession of unique features of physiology, expression, phenomenology; 6. intentionality - occurrence without specific intentional objects.

==== Development ==== 

According to the developmental criterion, emotions developed gradually in the sense basic emotions appeared before nonbasic ones. On account of evolution there had been creatures with hardly more than sensitivity to pleasure and painful elicitors to those with several basic emotions, such as enjoyment, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust, and (in mammals) the emotions of attachment. Even in our individual development we have a comparable progression. At birth infants have general distress and general pleasure and disgust is also noticed in the first few days of life. The emergence of sadness is at the age of three months. Then come anger and fear. The nonbasic emotions that appear first like embarrassment, envy, and empathy emerge only in the latter half of the second year of life.

Function

The functional criterion is closely related to the developmental criterion. Because of the important and recurring situational demands, basic emotions developed first in evolution.

Universality

According to the universality criterion, basic emotions should be present in all humans. If an emotion were to be universal, what will make it universal is its presence in all humans.

Prevalence

According to the prevalence criterion basic emotions occur most frequently, as compared with other emotions. The reason is rather clear that at the early stages of development, basic emotions were in practice the only emotional reactions and so they had to appear quite frequently.

Uniqueness

The fact that emotions have unique manifestations in several realms is the uniqueness criterion. They express in physiology, facial expression, and phenomenology. Primitive emotional reactions to specific emotional requirements are hard-wired and expressed in some unique ways. The purpose of these reactions is to provide a quick and readymade response to certain situations. The speed is achieved by having a somewhat rigid response. Thus basic emotions having a simpler structure, express a more rigid pairing of a specific stimulus with a specific response. But more complex emotions, which are developed later, express a more flexible and a less rigid emotional response.

Intentionality

The criterion of intentionality suggests that emotions can have an elaborate intentional structure. Intentionality is the ability of a cognitive agent to separate itself from immediate stimuli and to create a meaningful subject-object relation. Complex intentionality such as thinking and complex types of imagination is only typical of nonbasic emotions. Basic emotions may have more primitive forms of intentionality. Thus, emotional development proceeds from a state of general excitement to one of more specific emotions. When we are born most affective attitudes of our were undifferentiated. It takes time for the process of differentiation and integration to take place. Therefore a criterion for an emotion to be basic is that it can occur without intentional content. For example, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear can occur without any object and they are basic. By contrast, complex emotions such as envy are always intentional based on complex comparison, and developed more recently in evolution. 1.104-107, 71.3, 74.54-64