I want to know the difference between feeling and emotion.
While both feelings and emotions describe how things around us affect us, they are distinct. Emotions are things that are automatic to us – you can’t control what emotions come out of a given situation.
For example, if you see a lion, you will feel scared. Even if it is only for a second, your instinct will lead you to that emotion. There are some basic emotions that are widely agreed to be universal, including fear, grief, love, and rage. Some other psychologists recognize others, such as feeling as angry, disgust, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
In total, psychologists have identified emotions that include: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, contempt, craving, disappointment, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, envy, excitement, fear, guilt, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, pride, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire, surprise, sympathy and triumph. Each of these are automatic emotions that come out of the things that happen to us, day in and day out.
By contrast, feelings vary across people. Even though they are also caused by things that happen to us, feelings are influenced by thought.
The way that we think about and rationalize the happenings in our lives leads to different feelings. For this reason, our feelings towards something can change depending on the time that has occurred since it happened, our overall mood, our previous experiences with something, etc.
The interesting difference between feelings and emotions are both the range and the things that influence them. When we first see a little boy fall from the playground slide, we might feel a bit of fear (the emotion). However, depending on your feelings towards children and danger, the feelings that come as a result are different.
Someone who is very worried about children’s ability to handle pain might feel very worried. Another child who watches it happen might feel curious. Another person who expects the little boy to feel brave could be hopeful if the boy doesn’t cry, or disappointed if he does. The ultimate way that we feel towards something is the feeling that it cultivates.
Both emotions and feelings are typically short lived. They are caused by something specific and are usually forgotten by the time something new comes along. A mood, however, is different from these.
This is closer to an emotional or mental state of mind. If you have money problems, you will have a bad mood for longer than just a few minutes or hours; if you won a big competition your mood will be good and happy. These longer term moods would then affect different things that happen throughout your day.
