Psychology › Emotion, motivation & happiness
Emotions and how they work
Darwin 1872· Concept
Well replicatedStrong, repeated evidence.
Emotions are coordinated responses, combining feelings, body changes, facial expressions and urges to act, to events that matter to us.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Charles Darwin's 1872 book argued that expressions are inherited and shared with animals. Later theories disagree on order: William James said the body reacts first; Walter Cannon said feeling and body change arise together; Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer (1962) said we label general arousal using context. Appraisal theories stress how we interpret events. Constructionists such as Lisa Feldman Barrett argue the brain builds emotions from body signals and learned concepts. Patients with damage to emotion-related frontal areas often decide badly.
Why it matters
Emotions steer decisions, memory and health. For investors, fear and greed drive panic selling and bubble buying; knowing your own patterns helps set rules in advance.
The evidence
Status: well replicated that emotions shape body and choice, from heart-rate and hormone studies, brain imaging and brain-injury patients. Which theory best explains them is still debated.
Open questions
Why emotional life tends to grow steadier and more positive with age, the 'paradox of aging', even as health declines.
Inside this (4)
Connections (5)
▸William James and The Principles of Psychology proposed a body-first theory of Emotions and how they workMixed evidence
The connection
In 1884 James reversed common sense: we do not tremble because we are afraid; we feel afraid because we tremble. Emotion, he argued, is the perception of the body's reaction. Danish physician Carl Lange proposed a similar idea in 1885. Walter Cannon objected in 1927 that bodily changes are too slow and too similar across emotions, starting a long debate.
Who showed it and when
James's essay 'What Is an Emotion?' in the journal Mind, 1884; Lange in Copenhagen, 1885; Cannon at Harvard, 1927.
How solid is it?
The texts survive. Modern tests are mixed: a 2022 study across 19 countries found smiling slightly raised reported happiness, while an earlier 17-lab test of a pen-in-mouth version found nothing.
Open questions
How much bodily feedback creates, rather than accompanies, feelings. Constructionists like Lisa Feldman Barrett revive a version of James's idea, with the brain interpreting body signals.
▸Ekman's basic emotions and universal faces are the classic theory of Emotions and how they workMixed evidence
The connection
Basic-emotion theory says a handful of emotions are built-in programs, each with its own trigger, face, body pattern and urge: fear prepares escape, disgust rejects contamination. Other feelings are blends. It dominated research from the 1970s, shaping facial coding systems and emotion-reading software. Its chief rival, constructionism, says emotions are assembled from general body states and learned concepts.
Who showed it and when
Silvan Tomkins in the 1960s; Paul Ekman at the University of California, San Francisco; Ekman and Wallace Friesen's Facial Action Coding System, 1978; Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made, 2017.
How solid is it?
Cross-cultural recognition studies support it; brain-imaging meta-analyses, such as one in 2012, found no single region dedicated to each emotion, weakening the strongest version.
Open questions
Whether emotions are natural categories, like species, or culturally shaped concepts, like 'weekend'; many researchers now take positions in between.
▸Emotional intelligence is a proposed skill at handling Emotions and how they workMixed evidence
The connection
Emotional intelligence applies emotion science to differences between people. Salovey and Mayer's four branches: perceiving emotions in faces and voices, using them to aid thinking, understanding how they blend and change, and managing them in oneself and others. Ability tests score answers to items like naming a face's emotion or choosing the best way to calm an upset colleague.
Who showed it and when
Peter Salovey at Yale and John Mayer at the University of New Hampshire, 1990; Daniel Goleman's 1995 bestseller; the MSCEIT ability test, 2002.
How solid is it?
Ability scores relate modestly to social functioning; a 2010 meta-analysis found they predict job performance best in emotionally demanding jobs such as customer service.
Open questions
Whether there are objectively right answers about emotions; tests scored by consensus may reward typical responses rather than real skill.
▸Stress, cortisol and fight-or-flight runs on the same body systems as Emotions and how they workWell replicated
The connection
Fear, anger and anxiety switch on the same adrenaline and cortisol systems that define the stress response. Richard Lazarus argued stress, like emotion, depends on appraisal: judging whether demands exceed your resources. That is why reappraisal helps: in some studies, people told to read a pounding heart as excitement or useful energy performed better on speeches and tests.
Who showed it and when
Walter Cannon at Harvard, 1915; Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman's Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, 1984; Jeremy Jamieson's 2010 test-anxiety study and Alison Wood Brooks's 2014 'get excited' studies.
The evidence
Heart-rate and hormone recordings overlap in stress and strong negative emotions; appraisal experiments show that interpretation changes both.
Open questions
Whether 'challenge' and 'threat' stress are distinct bodily states, as some heart and blood-vessel studies suggest, or points on one continuum.
▸Grief and the 'five stages' is a powerful form of Emotions and how they workWell replicated
The connection
Grief is not one emotion but a shifting mix: sadness, yearning, anger, guilt, sometimes relief, arriving in waves set off by reminders. Moving back and forth between facing the loss and rebuilding daily life appears healthy. Bereaved people who could still laugh or smile when talking about the person adjusted better, and persistent yearning engages the brain's reward circuits.
Who showed it and when
George Bonanno and Dacher Keltner's 1997 study of bereaved spouses; Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut's dual process model, 1999; Mary-Frances O'Connor's 2008 brain-imaging study at UCLA.
The evidence
Long-term studies track bereaved people's emotions for years; brain imaging links persistent yearning in prolonged grief to reward-related activity.
Open questions
Why most people adapt within a year or two while roughly one in ten develop prolonged grief; attachment, circumstances of the death and support all seem to matter.