Understanding our fundamental and secondary emotions allows us to develop on a personal and social level. People with more social skills tend to get to know each other better and know what emotions they feel at all times.
In this way, they are able to capture, interpret and use these tools to be able to communicate easily when they recognize the emotions of others and know what generates their own emotions.
- Speaking of the essentials.
- How are basic emotions defined?Based on Paul Ekman’s theory.
- We can define six basic emotions: anger.
- Sadness.
- Joy.
- Fear.
- Surprise.
- And disgust.
They are identified as elementary or primary because they are intercultural and innate, that is, we have them from childhood, the facial expressions that involve them do not depend on culture and are recognized anywhere in the world.
Secondary emotions, on the other hand, are socially influenced. Depending on history and culture are expressed in one way or another, similarly interpersonal contact is needed to develop them, here we could find, for example, shame, contempt, guilt, pride and a myriad of emotions.
Currently there are countless studies dedicated to the recognition and identification of emotions, some say that there are four emotions considered basic and others increase this number by adding it to secondary emotions, in any case the important thing is to know how to identify them. , recognize them and act on them.
“Feelings and emotions are the universal language to be honored. Are they the true expression of who we are?
All emotions are adaptable, even if some are positive, such as joy, and other negative ones, such as sadness, anger and disgust, in fact, help all people adapt to their environment.
That’s why a better definition of emotions could be nice and unpleasant, but not necessarily negative.
Secondary emotions are also defined because they sometimes consist of the union of other basic emotions. For example, the emotion of jealousy might contain fear and anger, as well as shame would include fear of rejection and sadness of failure.
These emotions need interaction with others and growth that allows us to know how we feel in different situations or conflicts.
A curious fact that we can point out is that the only emotion defined as neutral is surprise, this emotion is the least lasting, since its hedonic tone passes quickly and becomes another emotion, for example, joy if the surprise is good or sadness if the surprise is not so good.
Even with all that we have said, basic and secondary emotions are always adaptive, for example, disgust helps us not to eat food that may be spoiled, fear protects us from stimuli that can harm our survival and sadness protects us promoting tranquility and space for personal meetings.
Good personal development requires the development of academic and emotional intelligence, the correct identification and recognition of emotions allows us to make good use of them and also leads us to know how to act with others and with ourselves.
Knowing the emotions that exist and how each person feels makes us powerful people, because it allows us to meet and connect with others. What does that mean?
Emotional education allows us to increase our self-esteem, since we know who we are, because we know how we feel; In addition, our social functioning will also improve, since it will allow us to better develop interpersonal relationships and skills with others. If we can identify what others feel, it will be easier to properly identify with them.
As we have seen, knowing emotions leads to balanced growth, because by recognizing them we can let them express themselves and allow them not to grow in the wrong direction, for example, mis management of fear can lead to the formation of phobias or panic.
We are and live in the midst of emotions, fundamental and secondary, knowing them and knowing how they express themselves is what helps us continue to grow day by day.