OTHER DISCRETE EMOTIONS

There are, of course, many other discrete emotions. Jealousy and envy are sometimes confused with one another in everyday conversation, but are quite easily distinguished. We become jealous if we think that we might lose someone’s affections (usually those of a sexual partner) because a third person is involved. On the other hand, we envy someone who has something (a possession, a quality, etc.) that we would like. It makes little sense to be jealous of a friend’s car. There is also a class of self-conscious emotions – embarrassment, pride, shyness, shame and guilt. They all make reference in some way to the self, particularly the self in a social context. Most emotions are social, but the self-conscious emotions are distinctive insofar as they depend on other people’s opinions. Lewis (1993) describes shame, for example, as involving an evaluation of our actions in relation to our entire self (our character), following a transgression of standards, rules or goals. It is always very negative and painful, and d srupts both thought and behaviour. Shame is concerned with a fundamental failure of the self, a character flaw, and we have a very strong motivation to avoid or escape it.

Are we born with our emotions or do we learn them? What happens as we turn from the emotional excesses of childhood to the more inhibited world of the adult? How important are early relationships to emotional development?