Originally posted on Humintell’s website

Humintell’s scientifically validated, emotion recognition training tools feature images of individuals portraying the 7 basic emotions: Anger, Contempt, Fear, Disgust, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.

But what exactly are basic emotions and where do other emotions such as shame, guilt and pride fit in? Read on to learn more…

Basic emotions are emotions that have been scientifically proven to have a certain facial expression associated with it.

For example, the basic emotion of “Anger” can be recognized by this picture all around the world, no matter what age, religion or gender you are, or what language you speak. Anger can be characterized by these characteristics below:

Similarly, Fear is also a basic emotion. Fear is recognized all around the world by this facial expression of emotion, with the characteristics which can be seen below. Its important to note that other words describing fear are also expressed by this same face (or portions of this face). Emotions such as scared, mortified, horrified and petrified all have characteristics of this expression.

There are other basic emotions such as disgust, contempt, happiness, sadness and surprise. Their characteristics can be seen below:

We often get asked about emotions such as shame, pride, jealously and guilt. While these emotions are important ones, they are still not considered part of the basic emotions set. For example, there is no scientific evidence showing that there is a universal expression of shame that is recognized around the world as shame. Be weary when you see or hear people labeling expressions as emotions not in the basic emotion set. There is little evidence backing up their claims.