The 6 unique emotions present in the whole world

Find out what are the six emotions that all people, all over the world, present and can recognize – according to Paul Ekman’s theory.

Hello friends!

One of the most fascinating disciplines in the faculty of psychology is anthropology. Roughly speaking, we can understand anthropology as a human science that studies man from the culture in which he is inserted.

For example, these days I was watching a documentary that presented the story of two Korean twins. One was adopted by an American couple and the other by a Norwegian couple. Although they will forever share an extremely similar genetic structure, the culture in which they will be raised (USA versus Norway) will make them, after growing up, have completely different perspectives and worldviews.

And it’s not just and only a matter of language (English or Norwegian), although of course language is a part of culture. Cultural practices, what is valued and what is not valued, what is right and what is not considered right, the way of expressing oneself, in short, much of the behavior will be shaped by the cultural environment in which they will be living – like this as we also are and were shaped.

However, despite this perspective that considers the human being only as a sum of genetics plus creation, as if we were Hume’s famous tabula rasa, there are theories that slightly extrapolate the acquired versus constitutive dichotomy.

A view that represents a third way, and is often confused with genetics, is phylogenetics, that is, what we inherit from our most distant ancestors and represents a deposit of information that is present in all of humanity.

This is how an American psychologist named Paul Ekman carried out his research on the basic emotions present throughout the world. After all, it was not a question of environmental creation, of cultural influence, because all people in the most different cultures have them. It also wasn’t an inherited way in which we inherit our eye color, because such traits are passed down through the closest parental ancestry.

The 6 unique emotions present in the whole world

After studying how people hide what they’re feeling, Paul Ekman began to look deeper into the emotions we all feel. To do this, he traveled all over the world, taking pictures of people who lived in Japan, in Papa Guinea (a place much studied in anthropology) and even in Brazil.

From these trips, Ekman argued that there are 6 basic emotions and that all human beings are capable of expressing them on their faces, as well as we are all capable of understanding what they mean.

Are they:

Sadness

Fear

Surprise

disgust

Rage

Happiness:

The language of emotions

Paul Ekman’s book The Language of Emotions thus became a classic in the study of emotions. Interestingly, psychology had never directly addressed the study of emotions. Evidently, several works of psychological lines such as Freudian and behaviorist had elucidated some issues, but always considering emotions not in themselves, but from their theoretical assumptions.

For Ekman, all 6 emotions are present as reactions we have to external or internal stimuli. They are automatic reactions. We can somewhat control the way we express them and in this sense, the culture in which we were raised intervenes in how much we can or should express, in what way and whether it is appropriate or inappropriate.

However, the instant reaction is uncontrollable and we have to be trained (although we don’t realize it) in how to hide and disguise what we are feeling.

The classic example is that moment when we receive a birthday present and, even wanting to show a negative reaction such as disgust, anger or sadness, we have to present that yellow smile that will hardly seem like a genuine expression of joy or surprise and contentment.

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