I read recently in a newspaper about a study into the range of emotions human beings can experience. The study turned up 27 of them. And this was a study undertaken by the University of California, Berkeley, and not some random list drawn up by two men in a pub over a pint.
It's been held that there are only about half a dozen core emotions, e.g., anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise.
This study expanded on that.
In short, the researchers at Berkeley sat 800 volunteers down in front of video monitors and asked them to report and rank the emotions they felt when watching 30 short (silent) video clips. The clips included all manner of things, including births, deaths, marriages, sex, spiders, scenic wonders, natural disasters, and awkward handshakes.
In short again, they found that the responses they got to the clips were multidimensional. No one clip produced a single emotion. In fact, a clip could elicit a variety of "feelings" in the viewer. And each of these feelings constituted an individual and unique emotion.
For example, a clip of a man on a tightrope walking between two mountain cliffs brought in the following response from the subjects: Fear 55%, Anxiety 45%, Admiration 9%, Aesthetic appreciation 9%, Amusement 9%, Entrancement 9%.
I don't want to get into an analysis of how they made their findings or drew their conclusions, but I think I can sum it up: Humans are complex creatures; our responses to stimuli are never one-dimensional.
This is a photo (close detail) that I took of a painting that hangs in the Auckland Art Gallery. For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven by Frank Bramley, 1891. It's quite big, and quite haunting when you stand in front of it. I can report Aesthetic Appreciation, Sadness, Empathetic pain, and Calmness.
My real interest in the university study is the LIST they drew up. And here it is:
27 Human Emotions:
Admiration
Adoration
Aesthetic Appreciation
Amusement
Anxiety
Awe
Awkwardness
Boredom
Calmness
Confusion
Craving
Disgust
Empathetic pain
Entrancement
Envy
Excitement
Fear
Horror
Interest
Joy
Nostalgia
Romance
Sadness
Satisfaction
Sexual desire
Sympathy
Triumph
I like this. It's another handy list for the writer's toolbox.
And I like the concept of multidimensional emotional responses to stimuli. It's a friendly reminder to write characters that have depth and are of more than one emotion. If a character has only one emotion, he's not real; he's a transparent plot device.
First published: Sleuthsayers.org (March 26, 2018)
Text & Photo ©2018 Stephen Ross