Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

FIGURE 1
One approach to organizing emotions is to use a hierarchy, which divides emotions 
into increasingly narrow subcategories. 
(Source: Adapted from Fischer, Shaver, & Carnochan, 1990.)
Emotions 
Positive 
Negative 
Love 
Joy 
Anger Sadness 
Fear 
Fondness 
Infatuation 
Bliss 
Contentment 
Pride Annoyance 
Hostility 
Contempt 
Jealousy 
Agony 
Grief 
Guilt 
Loneliness 
Horror 
Worry
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glands and in fact of your entire digestive system ceases. At the same time, though, 
your sweat glands probably will increase their activity because increased sweating 
will help you rid yourself of the excess heat developed by any emergency activity 
in which you engage. 
Of course, all these physiological changes are likely to occur without your aware-
ness. At the same time, though, the emotional experience accompanying them will 
be obvious to you: You most surely would report being fearful. 
Although it is easy to describe the general physical reactions that accompany 
emotions, defi ning the specifi c role that those physiological responses play in the 
experience of emotions has proved to be a major puzzle for psychologists. As we 
shall see, some theorists suggest that specifi c bodily reactions cause us to experience 
a particular emotion—we experience fear, for instance, because the heart is pounding 
and we are breathing deeply. In contrast, other theorists suggest that the physiolog-
ical reaction results from the experience of an emotion. In this view, we experience 
fear, and as a result the heart pounds and our breathing deepens.