What emotion influences the way you perceive the world?
Emotions play a vital role in our everyday lives and often shape the human experience. Take this free quiz to discover which emotion most influences how you perceive the world and express your feelings.
Which Emotion Best Represents You?
About This Human Emotion Test
his test is intended to help you identify which of the four primary human emotions most influences you.
While emotions and how we experience them can change over time, this test doesn’t reflect your current mood. Each answer aligns with one of the four core emotions.
Everything You Should Know About Human Emotions
Emotions influence how we feel, interpret events, make decisions, and interact with others. Over time, psychologists and researchers have debated both the definition of emotions and how many emotional states exist.
In the 1970s, psychologist Paul Ekman proposed that all humans experience six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger.
Another psychologist, Robert Plutchik, developed the Wheel of Emotions—also known as the feelings wheel. His theory suggested that basic emotions could be combined to form more complex or mixed emotional states. For instance, merging disgust and anger results in contempt. The wheel illustrates core emotions along with others that branch out or combine into new ones.
A 2017 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified 27 distinct basic emotions.
Meanwhile, a 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology proposed four core emotions and explored how these can evolve into more nuanced emotional experiences
4 Types of Human Emotions
The four primary basic human emotions are happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. These serve as a foundation for the wide range of emotional states we experience. Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions features these core emotions, along with several others that extend from them.
Happiness
Happiness is the most enjoyable of the four basic emotions and the one we most commonly desire to feel. It’s linked to feelings of joy and overall well-being.
Although it’s a fundamental emotion, happiness can be quite complex. What brings happiness to one person may not have the same effect on someone else. We often believe certain things or situations will make us happy, but that’s not always the case.
Studies suggest that happiness is connected to better health and may even contribute to a longer life. Still, showing only happiness while ignoring other emotions could be a sign of avoiding deeper feelings or unresolved issues.
Sadness
Sadness can be a temporary feeling with varying intensity or a persistent emotion. For instance, ongoing sadness is one of the core symptoms of a major depressive episode. It’s often linked to grief, hopelessness, or a lack of interest.
How sadness is felt and expressed varies from person to person and depends on its cause. Sudden events may trigger tears, while prolonged sadness can show up through signs commonly associated with depression.
Fear
Fear is a natural human emotion that evolved to help us survive. It arises intensely in response to a perceived threat and activates our fight-or-flight response, prompting us to act quickly and escape danger—an essential reaction for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Physically, fear can cause muscle tension, an increased heart rate, and racing thoughts.
In today’s world, fear is commonly linked to anxiety. However, fear refers to an emotional reaction to a present threat, while anxiety typically relates to anticipating a potential threat in the future.
Anger
Anger is a powerful emotion often linked to feelings of hostility, rage, and frustration. It can arise from a real or perceived injury or from the belief that an injustice has occurred.
While anger may sometimes manifest as aggressive behavior intended to cause harm, it isn’t always destructive. It can also serve a constructive purpose, motivating us to remove harmful or unpleasant elements from our lives. However, when anger becomes overwhelming or difficult to manage, it can harm relationships, disrupt daily life, and pose risks to others.
Like happiness, anger also affects our health. Research suggests it may contribute to chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
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