ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the evolution of scientific understanding about emotions with a focus on how we’ve come to our current understanding. It lists the categorical emotions and their relationship to attachment. Biologically-based emotions are more automatic, and are akin to the categorical emotions described. Les Greenberg divided emotions into four categories: adaptive primary emotions, secondary emotions, instrumental emotions, and maladaptive primary emotions. Though it seems there are more than ten thousand different facial expressions, he concluded that there are only six core emotions, each of which is connected to certain, distinct facial expressions. These six emotions are: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, and surprise, similar to what Darwin had concluded all those years before. Greenberg divides secondary emotions into “bad feelings” and “complex feelings.” Bad feelings encompass depression, anxiety, feeling hopeless or helpless, and also fear, rage, or shame. Culturally based, instrumental emotions serve a function in interpersonal interactions.
