The Primary Emotions?

Hello folks, welp, I'm working on a script and a setting, and I'm just wondering... what would you guys reckon the primary, definitive emotions of humanity are?

So far, I've got four: Wrath, Sorrow, Joy and Fear.

I've considered Love, and Apathy is sort of in there already as well...

Any others?

From a purely neurological standpoint, I would combine wrath into fear because they're fueled by the same mechanism. When you're afraid or being threatened, the reaction is anger or wrath, which makes you feel powerful.

Ah, really? :I

Hmm...

I'm curious, since we're on the subject of neurological chemicals: what are the main ones?

I know adrenaline is responsible for both fear and anger (flight or fight)?

Hope, Rage, Despair, Love. (No I haven't played 40k in three months, why do you ask?)

edited 28th Nov '11 7:05:48 AM by Night

You could always take from existing models *

I generally separate anger and fear because the cultures I've created think there's an important difference between whether you're driven to confront or flee from something, but it's different if you decide to go with a neurological model instead (and/or you're making it an objective thing, like a colour-coded magic being driven by the basic emotions or whatever). I'd pretty much never consider love a basic emotion, though - it seems to be more of a state or attitude than an emotion, and more likely just affects what emotional responses occur.

edited 28th Nov '11 7:22:33 AM by greedling

On a more basic, behavioral level there is the four Fs: Fight, Flight, Feed and, uh..., Fornicate. A lot of really complex emotions can be boiled down one of those four. But it is different for sentient creatures.

Though not as much as you might think.

I'd like to caution you that a list of all emotions described in English may include some emotions that are not primary—there are words for emotions that don't exist in English (for instance, a lot of the ancient Greek emotions don't translate well to English), so conversely, there may be words that do exist in English but that don't describe universal emotions. (I'm uncertain whether people can feel emotions they don't have words for—my romantic side inclines me towards yes, but I have an unpleasant feeling that the answer is actually "no.")

edited 28th Nov '11 3:46:36 PM by feotakahari

(In case you're making correspondences)

Joy (yellow air)

Anger (red fire)

Sorrow (blue water)

Love is joy and sorrow

Hate is anger and joy

Fear is sorrow and anger

edited 29th Nov '11 2:37:43 PM by nekomoon14

So, I'm going to try to explain this through my lack of emotions... I really only feel any emotions if something extreme happens.

If someone that I was close to dies, then I feel sort of sad, but not nearly as much as a normal person would. If someone I knew of, but wasn't close to died, then I wouldn't feel anything. Most of the time the only 'emotions' I feel are caused by adrenaline, like excited, or scared... I also feel... attachment(?), like, possessive, sort of? It's really more towards items than people. I'm probably more attached to my collection of art supplies than to my little brother. If that even makes sense.

Yeah, there's definentally something wrong with me; do I care? Not really. Lack of emotions, remember. So, something that should worry me doesn't... But I wouldn't intentionally put myself in danger- self preservation isn't really an emotion, though.

If my word vomit made any sense, then, you're welcome. If not, sorry.

I've read that there are only 4 basic emotions - fear, joy, sadness and anger - which we can feel at different intensities (e.g. from nervousness to terror) and that everything we feel, including "love", is a combination of some or all of those four at various intensities.

Are you trying to make something like primary colors, where you combine them to make everything else?

Because someone had to say it. Love, Hope, Greed, Fear, Rage, Compassion...Willpower?

Actually, in most schools of thought there are no "primary" emotions. There's just excitation, which then gets processed and categorized based on the situation and the social background of the person involved. I could be wrong, but I can recall any neurological models for distinguishing one set of emotions as more primary than any others.