Emotions Glossary

The scientific literature is filled with a host of technical-sounding terms. If you need some clarification as to what those terms mean, you’ve come to the right place. All of the emotion terms here are still primarily academic in nature, but in more detail to help you understand what psychologists mean when they mention a particular term. We’ve also included a reference from which each definition is based on/sourced from.

• Absorption
  Absorption is characterized by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one’s work, whereby time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work. Absorption is part of the experience of engagement, along with vigor and dedication.
• Adrenaline
  A neurotransmitter or neurohormone synthesized from noradrenaline, primarily involved in the fight or flight and stress response (e.g. fear). Also known as epinephrine.
• Aesthetic Emotions
  Emotions experienced and expressed in response to the arts. Such emotions are part of the experience of psychological aesthetics, which concerns people’s feelings of pleasure in response to art. The range of aesthetic feelings extends beyond liking, preference, and pleasure, and may encompass(...)
• Affect
  An overall state encompassing emotion, mood, feeling and other evaluative & valenced (e.g. positive, negative) elements like memories & preferences.
• Affect Infusion Model (AIM)
  An integrative theory explaining how affective states influence social judgments. The Affect Infusion Model (AIM) proposes a multiprocess approach to social judgments and identifies 4 alternative judgmental strategies: (a) direct access, (b) motivated, (c) heuristic and (d) substantive(...)
• Affective Events Theory (AET)
  A theory relating to affective experiences at work, emphasizing the role of work events as proximal causes of affective reactions. According to Affective Events Theory (AET), events that occur within organizational contexts/workplace settings trigger affective responses in organizational(...)
• Aggression
  Any behavior directed toward another individual that is carried out with the proximate (immediate) intent to cause harm. In addition, the perpetrator must believe that the behavior will harm the target and that the target is motivated to avoid the behavior.
• Aggressive/Dangerous Driving Behaviours
  Driving behaviours that endanger or have the potential to endanger others. Three dimensions of dangerous driving include (a) intentional acts of aggression toward others, (b) negative emotions experienced while driving, and (c) risk-taking.
• Alexithymia
  A personality construct of condition marked by difficulty identifying, describing and distinguishing feelings from bodily sensations; with limited imagination and an overdependence on externalization and reasoning (e.g. begin aware of sensations rather than sentiments).
• Amae (甘え)
  The ability to depend and presume upon another’s love or bask in another’s indulgence. The sense of, or the accompanying hope for, being lovingly cared for and involves depending on and presuming another’s indulgence.
• Amusement
  A pleasantly-valenced emotion that results from the sharing of humorous communication, eliciting positive affective experiences from targets and is associated with behavioural expressions such as smiling and laughter.
• Amygdala
  An almond shaped neural structure of various nuclei located in the anterior medial temporal lobe, primarily involved in learned, emotional conditioning and memory (e.g. fear).
• Anger
  An approach-related affect that may arise from blockage of movement towards a desired goal, a reaction to a displeasing violation of what “ought” to be that motivates an impulse to aggression triggered by the unpleasant event.
• Anticipatory Enthusiasm
  (An emotion that) addresses the need for food and other material resources, and should facilitate the physical and cognitive effort needed to acquire such resources. Anticipatory enthusiasm is experienced in response to cues of imminent reward, and has also been described as “wanting.”
• Anxiety (State)
  A transitory emotional state in response to perceptions of threatening situations that varies in intensity and fluctuates over time.
• Anxiety (Trait)
  A stable susceptibility or a proneness to experience state anxiety frequently.
• Anxiety Expectancy
  An associative learning process in which the individual has learned that a given stimulus arouses anxiety/fear.
• Anxiety Sensitivity
  An individual difference variable consisting of beliefs that the experience of anxiety/fear causes illness, embarrassment or additional anxiety.
• Appraisal Theory of Emotions
  A theory of emotion that states that emotional experiences are experiences of the situation as interpreted by the organism. Thus, the emotions people feel, along with their interpretation of the situation, is predictable from their appraisal of the situation.
• Approach-Type Emotion
  Emotions that constitute part of the appetitive system, organizing behavior involved in approaching desired incentives (rewards, goals).
• Autonomic Specificity Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that emotion-specific physiological responses can be viewed as a particular case of the general psychophysiological principle of stimulus-response specificity. This principle holds that specific stimulus contexts tend to produce discrete, identifiable, and reproducible somatic(...)
• Avoidance-Type Emotions
  Emotions that constitute part of the aversive system, organizing behaviour involved in withdrawal from, or avoidance of threats (punishments).
• Awe
  An emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm current mental structures, yet facilitate attempts at accommodation.
• Basic Emotions
  Fundamental, first order emotions that are structurally and dynamically simpler (primarily due to a lack of cognitive influence) operating chiefly during early childhood (e.g. joy, fear). They develop earlier, constitute foundations for more complex or secondary emotions, emphasize survival,(...)
• Behavioural Activation System
  A general motivation system that underlies behaviour and affect. Also referred to as Behavioural Approach System. The behavioural activation system regulates appetitive motivation, is sensitive to signals of reward, nonpunishment, and escape from punishment. Activation of this system causes(...)
• Behavioural Inhibition System
  A general motivation system that underlies behaviour and affect. The behavioural inhibition system regulates aversive motivation, is sensitive to signals of punishment, nonreward, and novelty. Activation of this system causes the person to inhibit behaviour that may lead to negative or painful(...)
• Bereavement
  A situation/stressor in which a person experiences the loss of someone significant through that person’s death.
• Boredom
  An emotion elicited based on an appraisal of stimuli as comprehensible but low on complexity. A state of relatively low arousal and dissatisfaction, which is attributed to an inadequately stimulating situation.
• Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotion
  A theory that posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources.
• Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion
  A theory of emotions developed by Water Cannon and Phillip Bard that claims that autonomic feedback is not necessary for emotional feelings. Rather, feelings and physiological responses are independent components of emotion. Emotional stimuli are processed in the brain, which then separately(...)
• Catharsis
  The word catharsis comes from the Greek word katharsis, which literally translated means a cleansing or purging. According to catharsis theory, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression is an effective way to purge angry and aggressive feelings. Anger and aggressive impulses exist inside(...)
• Circumplex Model of Emotion
  The circumplex model [of emotion] focuses on determining how traits and emotions are structurally similar, and its underlying assumption is that a relatively seamless circular ordering, or circumplex, is an economical description of the relations among traits and emotions.
• Coaching with Compassion
  Helping others in their intentional change process (i.e., achieving their dreams or aspirations or changing the way they think, feel, and act). Coaching others for their development is different than coaching others strictly for the organization’s benefit. The latter can be seen as an(...)
• Cognitive-Mediational Theory
  In regards to stress, the theory suggests that what causes stress reaction is not the environmental “stressor” alone but also its significance as appraised by the person who encounters it.
• Cognitive-Neoassocianistic Model (CNA)
  A model that proposes that a wide variety of unpleasant feelings and experience of negative affect can lead to the development of angry feelings and display of emotional aggression. Negative affect activates ideas, memories and expressive-motor reactions associated with anger and aggression(...)
• Compassion
  The feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help.
• Compassion Fatigue
  A state of tension and preoccupation with the traumatized patients by re-experiencing the traumatic events, avoidance/numbing of reminders persistent arousal (e.g., anxiety) associated with the patient. It is a function of bearing witness to the suffering of others.
• Confusion
  An emotion that involves appraising an event as new, complex, or unexpected; unlike interest, it (confusion) involves further appraising the target as hard to understand and probably incomprehensible.
• Contempt
  An emotion that will often be triggered by violations of the ethics of community (namely, respect, duty and/or hierarchy). An emotion characterized by short-term derogation of a target, and is likely to develop into long-term rejection, with the goal of socially excluding this other person.(...)
• Cortisol
  A steroid hormone released by the adrenal gland as part of the HPA axis in response to prolonged stress, via mobilization of energy reserves & immunity suppression.
• Curiosity
  A form of cognitively-induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge or understanding.
• Dedication
  One of the three components of engagement, dedication is characterized by a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge.
• Delirium
  An acute disorder of attention and cognition. Also referred to as acute confusional state.
• Depression
  A kind of disorder which includes symptoms in mood, body, motivation and behavior area. The symptoms of this disorder are negative mood, loss of energy and interest, feeling of guilt, difficulty in concentration, reduction of appetite and thought of death and suicide.
• Depressive Realism
  The tendency for depressed individuals to make realistic inferences, and to do so to a greater extent than non-depressed individuals under certain circumstances.
• Depressive Realism Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that depressed individuals can make realistic inferences, but that they could do so to a greater extent than nondepressed individuals under certain circumstances.
• Desire
  An emotion directed to the attainment of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected. Desire therefore has three elements critical to it: (1) an external object, (2) a feeling directed to the attainment of satisfaction from that object and (3) an internal (subjective) reward or(...)
• Despair
  An emotional state characterized by the failure of hope and often triggered by the threat of death. Despair is often associated with hopelessness.
• Disappointment
  An emotion that arises upon appraisal of the consequences of one’s decisions. Like regret, disappointment is a ‘post-decisional emotion’. Disappointment is an emotion that arises when there is a perceived gap between the factual outcome with an outcome that might have been had another state of(...)
• Discrete Emotions
  Separate emotional states… (which) can be identified and differ not only in expression but in other important ways such as appraisal, antecedent events, behavioural responses and physiology. Discrete emotions also have to be in some way adaptive.
• Disgust
  Revulsion at the prospect of (oral) incorporation of an offensive object. The offensive objects are contaminants; that is, if they even briefly contact an acceptable food, they tend to render that food unacceptable.
• Displacement
  Displacement refers to altering the target of an impulse. For example, an unacceptable violent impulse toward one’s father might be transformed into a hostile attitude toward policemen or other authority figures.
• Display Rules
  Rules, norms, guidelines, and expectations that people learn to manage and modify emotional displays depending on social circumstances; the term explains how people of different cultures manage their displays of emotion, depending on context.
• Dissonant Relationships
  Interpersonal relationships that produce negative emotions, interpersonal discord, and sympathetic nervous system activation (e.g., fight or flight response).
• Distress
  A form of stress associated with negative feelings and disturbed bodily states. Distress is a stress response towards stimuli/targets appraised as harmful, threatening and challenging beyond one’s confidence and/or capability to overcome.
• Dopamine
  A neurotransmitter released from the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain primarily involved in reward, motivation, addiction & movement behaviour
• Doubt
  An emotion experienced when one’s truth judgments (propositions considered to be true) include equal degrees of belief and disbelief. One’s truth judgments is dependent on probability, credibility and plausibility of the propositions.
• Duchenne Smile
  An indicator of a genuine smile or true enjoyment. Smiles with Duchenne’s marker (i.e., the presence of orbicularis oculi activity) have been more often associated with the experience of positive emotions (e.g., amusement) in comparison with other forms of smiling.
• Dysthymia
  A chronic depressive disorder, characterized by functional impairment and at least 2 years of depressive symptoms.
• Electroencephalography (EEG)
  An electrophysiological technique for the recording of electrical activity arising from the human brain.
• Electromyography (EMG)
  An experimental technique concerned with the development, recording and analysis of myoelectric signals or the electrical activity of muscle tissue. Myoelectric signals are formed by physiological variations in the state of muscle fiber membranes.
• Elevation
  A positive emotion one experiences when witnessing a virtuous act that improves the welfare of others. Moral elevation consists of a feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by admiration and affection for the person(s) who performed the exemplary behavior.
• Embarrassment
  (An emotion experienced when) individuals fail to behave in accordance with socially defined scripts and roles and is defined as "the flustering caused by the perception that a flubbed (botched, fumbled) performance, a working consensus of identities, cannot, or in any event, will not, be(...)
• Emotion
  Emotion consists of neural circuits (that are at least partially dedicated), response systems, and a feeling state/process that motivates and organizes cognition and action. Emotion also provides information to the person experiencing it, and may include antecedent cognitive appraisals and(...)
• Emotion Appropriateness
  “Appropriate” emotion is nothing more or less than emotion that is correct for the situation and in correct proportion to the evoking circumstances. At the extremes of emotional expression, there tends to be a good degree of cultural consensus both concerning which emotions (if any) are(...)
• Emotion Regulation
  The processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions. Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion(...)
• Emotional Blackmail
  A powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten, either directly or indirectly, to punish us if we don’t do what they want.
• Emotional Contagion
  The tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with that of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally.
• Emotional Intelligence
  The subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
• Emotional Labour
  Labour (that) requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. Emotional labor may involve enhancing, faking, or suppressing emotions to modify the emotional expression. Generally, emotions are managed in(...)
• Emotional Literacy
  The ability to understand your emotions, the ability to listen to others and empathize with their emotions, and the ability to express emotions productively. To be emotionally literature is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal power and improves the quality of(...)
• Emotional Response Coherence
  The coordination, or association, of a person's experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses as the emotion unfolds over time.
• Emotions as Social Information (EASI) Model
  The premise of this perspective is that, just as mood provides information to the self, emotional expressions provide information to observers, which may influence their behavior. The EASI model extends this notion by identifying two processes through which observers’ behavior may be(...)
• Empathic Embarrassment
  The flustered discomfort of embarrassment that observers experience when they empathetically share in another’s experience. This embarrassment is felt even though the target’s actions do not reflect on the observer, and the observer’s social identity is not threatened.
• Empathy
  Empathy in its broadest sense refers to the reactions of one individual to the observed reactions of another.
• Endorphins
  Neurotransmitters found in the brain that bind to opiate receptors and produce a feeling of pain relief also known as analgesia.
• Engagement
  A positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Engagement refers to a persistent and pervasive affective–cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behavior.
• Entrepreneurial Passion
  A consciously accessible, intense positive feeling experienced by engagement in entrepreneurial activities associated with roles that are meaningful and salient to the self-identity of the entrepreneur.
• Envy
  An emotion experienced when one appraises another person as possessing something that one desires but lacks, or when one compares poorly with others on characteristics important to oneself. Envy involves two elements (oneself and a person to whom one compares poorly). Envy is also(...)
• Eustress
  A form of stress associated with positive feelings and healthy bodily states. Eustress is a stress response towards stimuli/targets appraised as harmful, threatening, and challenging but within one’s confidence and/or capability
• Evolutionary Perspective on Emotions
  An evolutionary approach defines what emotions are in terms of how they came to exist. Emotions are modes of functioning, shaped by natural selection, that coordinate physiological, cognitive, motivational, behavioural and subjective responses in patterns that increase the ability to meet(...)
• Exposure Therapy
  A form of cognitive-behavioural treatment for posttraumatic stress disorders in which clients relive memories of a traumatic event (i.e. imaginal exposure), and confront situations that are avoided because they trigger distressing memories and thoughts (i.e. in vivo exposure).
• Expressive Writing
  The act of constructing stories and personal narratives through writing that helps individuals understand their experiences and themselves. Expressive writing allows the individual to organize and remember events in a coherent fashion while integrating thoughts and feelings, resulting in a(...)
• Facial Action Coding Scheme (FACS)
  A coding system that distinguishes all possible visually distinguishable facial movements based on a comprehensive analysis of the anatomical basis of facial movement.
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that facial expressions provide feedback to the responder that is necessary or sufficient to affect significantly his or her emotional experience and behavior.
• False Hope
  Hope in which expectations are based on (i) illusions rather than reality, (ii) unsuitable goals being pursued and (iii) poor strategies to achieve desired goals. False hope is often contrasted with hope, which is a “motivational state based on an inter-actively derived sense of successful (i)(...)
• Fear
  An emotion that arises from appraisals of situations as being uncertain and beyond individual control, motivating escape or protective behaviours that maximize safety and security.
• Fight or Flight
  A primitive, physiological system evolved to enable rapid response to short term threat or stress either by fighting, fleeing or freezing via activation of the sympathetic nervous system, e.g. increased heart rate, blood pressure. Also known as acute stress response.
• Flow
  The holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement. When one is in flow, he/she experiences it as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which he/she is in control of his actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment,(...)
• Forgiveness
  The set of motivational changes whereby one becomes (a) decreasingly motivated to retaliate against an offending relationship partner; (b) decreasingly motivated to maintain estrangement from the offender; and (c) increasingly motivated by conciliation and goodwill for the offender, despite(...)
• Frustration
  An interference with the occurrence of an instigated goal-response at its proper time in the behavior sequence. Frustrations are aversive events and generate aggressive inclinations only to the extent that they produce negative affect.
• Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that frustrations can give rise to aggressive inclinations because they are aversive. They produce an instigation to aggression only to the extent that they are unpleasant to those affected.
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
  A model that comprises three phases in a stress response: alarm (acute stress response, mobilized for threat), resistance (continued coping of threat) and exhaustion (failure to cope with prolonged stress).
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
  An excessive and inappropriate worrying that is persistent and not restricted to particular circumstances.
• Gratitude
  An emotion experienced when individuals perceive themselves to be recipients of an intentionally rendered benefit that is both valuable to the beneficiary and costly to the benefactor.
• Grief
  An emotion response towards loss, usually related to the death of a close friend or relative.
• Guilt
  An unpleasant emotional state associated with possible objections to his or her actions, inaction, circumstances or intentions. Guilt is distinguished from shame on the basis of specificity. Guilt concerns one particular action, in contrast to shame, which pertains to the entire self. Further,(...)
• Happiness
  A composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions.
• Hatred
  A negative (i.e. unpleasant) intergroup emotion based on the perception that out-group members are harmful to oneself, one’s group or one’s group members. Hatred stems from the appraisal that the harm is intentional and stemming from a stable evil character of out-group members, thereby(...)
• Heightened Sensitivity
  An individual difference influencing the extent to which an individual is high on sensory-processing sensitivity. Highly sensitive people are often aware of subtleties in their surrounding but more easily overwhelmed when they have been out in a highly stimulating environment for too long.
• Hope
  A cognitive set that is composed of a reciprocally derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed determination) and (b) pathways (planning of ways to meet goals).
• Hopelessness
  An unpleasant emotion arising from the belief that one has no solution to serious life problems, often viewing suicide as the only way out of an intolerable situation. Hopelessness is often seen as a core characteristic of depression and serves as a link between depression and suicide.
• Horror
  An emotional state characterized by abnormal physical agitation (shuddering, tingling, screaming) which is caused by a stimuli/ being that is physically and perhaps morally threatening. The threatening stimuli/being has the property of being impure and as such, motivates the desire to avoid(...)
• Hostile Attribution Bias
  The tendency to interpret the intention of others as hostile when social context cues are ambiguous. People who exhibit the HAB think that ambiguous behavior of others is hostile and often directed toward them, while those who do not exhibit the HAB interpret the behavior in a nonhostile,(...)
• Humour
  Any event shared by an agent with another individual that is intended to be amusing to the target and the target perceives as an intentional act. Amusing communications that produce positive emotions and cognition in the individual, group, or organization.
• Hypercognized Emotions
  An emotion for which a society possess an elaborate cognitive structure. One indicator of hypercognition is that the society has large number of lexical entries (or words) for that emotion. For example, if a society possess multiple words to describe anger (rage, frustration, irritation,(...)
• Hypocognized Emotions
  An emotion for which society possesses little knowledge. One indicator of hypocognition is having few or no lexical entries (or words) for that emotion. For instance, if a society categorizes “feeling ill”, “troubled” and “fatigued” under the category of “sadness”, then sadness is hypocognized(...)
• Hypothalamus
  The body’s master gland located below the thalamus regulating hormonal & internal regulation of bodily functions as directed by the brain.
• Hypothalamus, Pituitary and Adrenal Gland Axis (HPA)
  This system regulates cortisol secretion from the adrenal gland in response to prolonged stress through a series of activations of these three structures. Repeated activation of the HPA axis in response to chronic stress leads to its dysfunction (e.g. the resistance and exhaustion phase of the(...)
• Inspiration
  A construct characterized by evocation, motivation, and transcendence. Specifically, inspiration implies motivation, which is to say that it involves the energization and direction of behaviour; is evoked rather than initiated directly through an act of will or arising without apparent cause;(...)
• Inspirational Leadership
  One of the factors in the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and one of the four components of transformational leadership theory (the other three being intellectual stimulation, idealized influence and individual consideration). Inspirational leadership consists of leader behaviours(...)
• Insular Cortex
  An inverted triangular shaped lobe hidden beneath the frontal, temporal & parietal lobe junction, primarily involved in taste, disgust, interoceptive sensation and awareness (e.g. subjective feelings).
• Interest
  A motivational variable that includes both affective and cognitive as separate but interacting systems. The affective component of interest describes positive emotions accompanying engagement, whereas the cognitive component refers to perceptual and representational activities related to engagement.
• Intergroup Emotion Theory (IET)
  The idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. That is, when group membership is salient and situations are appraised in terms of their consequences for the in-group, specific intergroup emotional(...)
• James-Lange Theory of Emotion
  A theory of emotions developed by William James and Carl Lange. The theory suggests that an emotional stimulus produces motor reactions of fleeing, and the sensory feedback of which generates emotional feelings. The James-Lange theory stands in contrast with the ‘common sense’ view of(...)
• Jealousy
  An emotion experienced when one appraises that one may lose an important relationship with a person who now prefers a different partner. Jealousy requires three elements (oneself, a partner with whom one has a relationship, and a rival to whom one fears that this relationship will be lost).(...)
• Job Satisfaction
  A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job, or job experiences.
• Joy
  A pleasant emotion that emerges when one’s current circumstances present unexpected good fortune. People feel joy, for instance, when receiving good news or a pleasant surprise.
• Klüver-Bucy Syndrome
  A lack of affect, particularly in fear to threat or aversive situations due to bilateral removal of the amygdala and inferior temporal cortex. It is also marked by hyperorality (tendency to examine objects orally), hypersexuality & indiscriminate dietary behaviour (eating previously rejected food).
• Knowledge Emotions
  Emotions associated with thinking and comprehending. These emotions include interest, confusion, and surprise, the most widely studied emotions in this family.
• Locked-In Syndrome
  A diagnosis where patients are conscious with intact cognition, but no motor (except blinking) & verbal abilities due to bilateral ventral pontine lesions.
• Loneliness
  An unpleasant experience that occurs when a person’s network of social relations is deficient in some important way, either quantitatively or qualitatively. This definition shares three important qualities. First, loneliness results from deficiencies in the person’s social relations. Second,(...)
• Love
  Investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake.
• Loving-Kindness Meditation
  A form of meditation that involves directing one’s emotions toward warm and tender feelings in an open-hearted way. In the practice of LKM, individuals are first asked to focus on their heart region and contemplate a person for whom they already feel warm and tender feelings (e.g. their child,(...)
• Lust
  One of three primary, discrete, and interrelated emotion systems in the brain for mating, reproduction, and parenting (the other two being attraction and attachment). Lust (Sex drive or the libido) is characterized by a craving for sexual gratification; it is associated primarily with(...)
• Micro-expressions/Micro-displays/Micro-facial-expressions
  Expressions which are so brief that they are barely perceptible to the untrained observer. Micro displays may be fragments of squelched, neutralized, or masked display. Micro displays may also show full muscular movements associated with a macro affect display, by may be greatly reduced in(...)
• Microflow
  Activities that are short in duration, interstitial and sub- ordinated within the stream of action, and often so routinized as to occur almost outside awareness.
• Mindfulness
  The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment. The awareness that results from (1) self-regulation of attention so that is maintained on immediate experience, thereby allowing for(...)
• Mindfulness Meditation
  A form of meditation that emphasizes detached observation from one moment to the next, of a constantly changing field of objects. This flexibility is achieved by concentrating on one primary object (commonly the successive flow of inbreaths and outbreaths), until attention is relatively(...)
• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
  A structured group programme that employs mindfulness meditation to alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. Partic- ipants are invited to focus with an interested, accepting and non-judgemental attitude on their pain, difficult sensations,(...)
• Mirror Neurons
  A class of visuomotor neurons (initially identified in macaque monkey premotor cortex) that respond when a particular action is performed by an individual observed and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching(...)
• Misattribution of Affect
  The tendency for individuals to have difficulty disentangling their affective responses to two events occurring in close proximity in time and space. Consequently, individuals confuse the sources of their affective responses. A change in core affect due to one source is mistakenly(...)
• Mono-Amine Oxidase-A (MAOA) Gene
  Also known as the “warrior gene”, this gene specifically produces the enzyme MAOA, which decomposes monoamine neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline). Individuals with low levels of MAOA are more likely to react aggressively in a highly provocative situation.
• Mood
  Affective states that feature a lower felt intensity than emotions, are not displayed, do not have a clear object, rises and dissipates slowly relative to emotion, and lasts much longer than emotions.
• Mood-Congruent Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that stimuli agreeing in affective valence with one’s mood are learned and retrieved better than stimuli of different valence. The enhanced encoding and/or retrieval of material the affective valence of which is congruent with ongoing mood.
• Moral Disgust
  Disgust elicited by abstract sociomoral transgressions.
• Negative Affectivity (NA; Neuroticism)
  Susceptibility to negative affect. Individuals high on trait neuroticism, relative to those low on trait neuroticism, are more likely to have an aversive motivation system that appears to inhibit behaviour through negative affect. As such, individuals who are high on trait neuroticism are(...)
• Negative Emotions (Unpleasant Emotions)
  The valence (subjective experience, usually in terms in attractiveness or aversiveness) of emotions that is characterized by displeasure, unpleasantness and motivates avoidance-type behaviours.
• Nonverbal Behaviour
  Actions distinct from speech, which may include facial expressions, hand and arm gestures, postures, positions, and various movements of the body or the legs and feet.
• Nonverbal Communication
  Certain non-language behaviors, such as voice quality (paralanguage), body motion, touch, and use of personal space (proxemics), appear to play a prominent role in communication.
• Nostalgia
  A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past that is a predominantly positive and social emotion. Nostalgic experiences typically feature the self as a protagonist in interactions with close others or in momentous events.
• Optimism
  Positive generalized outcome expectancies (Scheier & Carver, 1985: 219). Compared with hope, optimism is less explicitly concerns with self-initiated actions one can take to create a successful future for oneself. Simply put, the optimistic person believes that somehow—either through luck, the(...)
• Oxytocin
  A hypothalamic controlled neurohormone released via the posterior pituitary gland, facilitating social bonding, lactation and maternal behaviour.
• Panic Attack
  Discrete and intense periods of autonomic arousal accompanied by fear.
• Parasympathetic Nervous System
  A subdivision of the autonomic nervous system regulating largely involuntary internal processes, focused on energy storage, growth & restoration (slows heart beat, stimulate digestion). Inhibits and opposes the sympathetic nervous system subdivision.
• Passion
  A strong inclination toward an activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy. Obsessive passion refers to a controlled internalization of an activity in one’s identity that creates an internal pressure to engage in the activity that the person(...)
• Pessimism
  Negative generalized outcome expectancies; an individual difference reflecting the extent to which people hold generalized unfavourable expectancies for their future *Note that this definition considers optimism and pessimism to be unidimensional, although there is evidence to suggest that(...)
• Phobias
  Irrational and specific fears of certain objects or animals.
• Piloerection
  Involuntary muscle contraction causing hair follicles in the skin to stand (e.g. goose bumps), resulting in increased insulation in response to cold, fear or intense emotional responses (e.g. musical chills).
• Pity
  The negative evaluation and affect (sorrow, discomfort) that witnessing the suffering of others may elicit. Pity is experienced when the target’s suffering is a result of uncontrollable causes, independent of the locus of the cause. Further, pity involves the additional appraisal of feeling(...)
• Positive Affectivity (PA; Extraversion)
  Susceptibility to positive affect. Individuals high on trait extraversion, relative to those low on trait extraversion, are more likely to have an appetitive motivation system that appears to motivate approach behaviour through positive affect. As such, individuals who are high on trait(...)
• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)
  A 20-item self-report scale commonly used to assess mood, comprising of 10 positive and 10 negative state items. Items are rated on a 5 point Likert scale (1: Not at all, 5: Extremely), with higher scores indicating predominant mood.
• Positive Emotions (Pleasant Emotions)
  The valence (subjective experience, usually in terms in attractiveness or aversiveness) of emotions that is characterized by pleasure, pleasantness and motivates approach-type behaviours.
• Positive Organizational Behaviour (POB)
  The study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace.
• Positive Psychology
  An umbrella term for the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions. The science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions.
• Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG)
  A potential consequence of the cognitive effort to redefine one’s beliefs (following a traumatic experience), and rebuild their assumptive world. Consequently, individuals may reexamine many aspects of their lives and recognize growth on domains such as personal strength, relationships with(...)
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  An anxiety disorder developed after a confrontation with a traumatic event. The core features of PTSD are the persistence of intense, distressing, and fearfully avoided reactions to reminders of the triggering event, alteration of mood and cognition, a pervasive sense of imminent threat,(...)
• Prefrontal Cortex
  The area of the frontal lobe nearest to the nose highly developed in primates (especially humans) involved in attention, working memory, planning & decision making.
• Pride
  A self-conscious emotion arising from achievements that can be attributed to one’s abilities or effort. Attributing positive events to internal, unstable, controllable causes (e.g. effort) promotes authentic pride, whereas attributing the same events to internal, stable, uncontrollable causes(...)
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation
  A technique in which a person is trained to voluntarily relax individual muscles. It induces both physiological and psychological relaxation by reducing the response to stress, reducing skeletal muscle contractions, and decreasing the sensation of pain.
• Psychological Capital
  An individual’s positive psychological state of development and is characterized by having confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to success in challenging tasks, making positive attribution about succeeding now and in the future, persevering toward goals and, when necessary(...)
• Psychopathy
  A socially devastating disorder defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioural characteristics, including egocentricity; impulsivity; irresponsibility; shallow emotions; lack of empathy, guilt or remorse; pathological lying; manipulativeness; and the persistent(...)
• Reappraisal
  An approach to down-regulating emotions that involves changing how we think about a situation in order to decrease its emotional impact.
• Regret
  An emotion that arises upon appraisal of the consequences of one’s decisions. Like disappointment, regret is a ‘post-decisional emotion’. Regret is an emotion that arises when there is a perceived gap between the factual outcome with an outcome that might have been had one chosen another(...)
• Remorse
  A feeling of compunction, or deep regret, for a sin or wrong committed. Unlike regret, remorse is felt about a sin or moral wrong whereas regret is felt about what is in some way undesirable, but not particularly so. Regret, but not remorse, can be felt about an event for which the agent does(...)
• Repentance
  A private attitude of contrition accompanied by a motive to avoid repeating the transgression.
• Resentment
  A cold, emotional complex consisting of bitterness, hostility, residual fear, and residual anger in response to perceived harm from an offender.
• Resilience
  A dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity. Implicit within this notion are two critical condition: (1) exposure to significant threat or adversity; and (2) the achievement of positive adaptation despite major assaults on the developmental process.
• Resonant Relationships
  Relationships that are characterized by mutual positive emotions, a subjective sense of being in synchrony with one another, and physiological effects of parasympathetic nervous system activation.
• Respect
  Worth accorded to one person by one or more others; individual’s assessment of how they are evaluated by those with whom they share common group membership.
• Rest and Digest
  The physiological system that diverts resources to maintenance and growth activities. The rest-and-digest branch of the autonomic nervous system functions through activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Because of this, the parasympathetic nervous system also referred to as the(...)
• Rumination
  Tendency to repeatedly & passively rehash on one’s emotional state, cause & implications; closely linked to depression maintenance & prediction.
• Runner's High
  A state of euphoria while running, commonly described with feelings such as “pleasantness”, “inner harmony”, “boundless energy,” or even druglike “orgiastic” sensations.
• Sadder-but-Wiser Hypothesis
  The finding that nondepressed individuals, relative to depressed individuals are less accurate in their assessments of the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. Nondepressed individuals overestimated the degree of(...)
• Sadness
  General low mood, or lowered mood and activity related to personal suffering, physical state, object loss, or inability to perform a desired action.
• Satisfaction (Life Satisfaction)
  A judgmental process, in which individuals assess the quality of their lives on the basis of their own unique set of criteria.
• Savouring
  The capacity to attend to the joys, pleasure, and other positive feelings that we experience in our lives.
• Schachter-Singer Theory
  A theory of emotion stating that a subjective emotional state is dictated by an individual’s cognitive appraisal of their physiological arousal occurring simultaneously with the situation.
• Schadenfreude
  An emotional reaction defined as taking pleasure in another’s misfortune.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
  An affective disorder which is characterized by recurrent depressive episodes that occur annually at the same time each year.
• Self-Compassion
  Self-compassion involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness. Self-compassion also involves offering nonjudgmental understanding to one’s pain, inadequacies(...)
• Self-Conscious Emotions
  Emotions that are evoked by self-reflection and self-evaluation. Such evaluations may be implicit or explicit, consciously experienced or transpiring beyond individual awareness. Fundamentally, self-conscious emotions involve people’s reactions to their own characteristics or behaviour.
• Self-Directed Anger
  Anger that is relatively self-focused, is associated with self-correction and wanting to “fix” the situation.
• Self-Pity
  A sympathetic, heartfelt sorrow for oneself prompted by one’s own physical or mental suffering, distress, or unhappiness.
• Self-Transcendent Emotions
  Emotions (usually positive emotions) that arises when an individual appraises something or someone greater or better than the self. Common elicitors are displays of talent or of physical and moral beauty. Elevation, awe or admiration are considered to be prototypical self-transcendent positive(...)
• Serenity
  An emotion that emerges when people interpret their current situation as utterly cherished, right, or satisfying. People feel serenity, for instance, when they feel comfortable, at ease in, or at one with their situation.
• Serotonin
  Also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine, it is a neurotransmitter derived from the amino acid tryptophan and is involved in regulating mood, sleep, emotional behaviour and aggression.
• Shame
  An emotion when one’s objectionable behaviour is seen as reflecting, more generally, a defective, objectionable self. Upon experience of this painful self-scrutiny, the individual experiences a sense of “shrinking” or of “being small” along with feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness. In(...)
• Social Phobia
  A chronic and debilitating condition that is characterized by a persistent fear of interacting or performing in social situations due to concerns of embarrassment, humiliation or negative evaluation by others.
• Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
  The process of acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to recognize and manage emotions; developing caring and concern for others; making responsible decisions; establishing positive relationships; and handling challenging situations capably.
• Sociopathy
  An individual difference consisting of a certain genotype, physiotype, and personality that renders and individual capable of experiencing secondary, “social” emotions that normally contribute to behavioural motivation and inhibition.
• Solitude
  A context in which individuals have no immediate possibility of social interactions or exchanges of information and affect these entail. At the same time, solitude is a situation in which individuals are free from social constraints, demands, and expectations, allowing them to think and act(...)
• Somatic Marker Hypothesis
  The hypothesis that responses to stimuli (conscious or non-conscious; overt or covert) operate as ‘markers’ in bioregulatory processes such as in emotions and feelings. These bodily (somatic) markers have implications for human reasoning and decision-making, biasing the selection of aversive(...)
• Startle Reflex
  An inherent, involuntary response to sudden or loud noise in which the neck and limbs are recoiled towards the chest. It is enhanced in individuals with high anxiety.
• State Affect
  Within-person, momentary, subjective experiences of emotion or mood.
• Stress
  A typically negative emotional experience accompanied by corresponding, stereotypical physiological & behavioural bodily changes in response to any demand made upon it.
• Subjective Well-Being (SWB)
  A broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction.
• Suppression
  An approach to down-regulating emotions that involves inhibiting ongoing emotion-expressive behaviour.
• Surprise
  A basic, discrete emotion that arises when an individual perceives a stimuli as unexpected or disconfirming expectancies.
• Survivor's Guilt
  A form of guilt that is experienced when individuals believe that they are – simply by furthering their own causes – experiencing good things at the expense of others, and that their success will make others feel bad by compassion. They assume irrationally that the attainment of good things is(...)
• Sympathetic Nervous System
  A subdivision of the autonomic nervous system regulating largely involuntary internal processes focused on energy usage for real or perceived crisis (fight, fright, flight). Inhibits and opposes the parasympathetic nervous system subdivision.
• Sympathy
  An emotional response, stemming from the apprehension of another’s emotion state or condition, that is not the same as the other’s state or condition but consists of feelings of sorrow or concern for the other.
• Terror
  An intense, unpleasant emotion arising from death awareness, or from stimuli that arouse mortality salience (i.e. reminders of one’s eventual, impending death).
• Terror Management Theory
  A theory that posits that to manage the potential for terror engendered by the awareness of mortality, humans sustain faith in worldviews which provide a sense that they are significant beings in an enduring, meaningful world rather than mere animals fated only to obliteration upon(...)
• Theory of Mind
  The ability of an individual to impute (attribute, assign) mental states to himself and to others (either to conspecifics or to other species as well). A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used(...)
• Trait Affect
  Between-person, relatively stable tendencies and dispositions to experience certain emotions or mood.
• Trait-Consistent Mood State
  The idea that both personality traits and mood states convey information about the self in the world. When traits and states mismatch, epistemic uncertainty results, causing a delay when a person is asked to encode new events with reference to his or her feelings or motivations. As such, a(...)
• Trauma
  Stress events that present extraordinary challenges to coping and adaptation; traumatic stressors includes “experiencing, witnessing, or confronting events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.”
• Triangular Theory of Love
  A theory of love which deals both with the nature of love with loves in different kinds of relationships. It is suggested that there are 3 components: (a) intimacy encompassing the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness experienced in loving relationships; (b) passion(...)
• Uncertainty
  An aversive state that people are motivated to reduce arising from the lack of information about an event.
• Unrealistic Optimism
  The systematic tendency to form beliefs that are biased, and often false, but have significant benefits because they increase wellbeing, contribute to mental and physical health, and support productivity and motivation.
• Upward Spiral of Positive Emotions
  The observation that the effects of positive emotions accumulate and compound. That is, the effects of positive emotions, broadened thinking, and positive meaning share reciprocal relations. The broadened attention and cognition triggered by positive emotions, for instance, facilitate coping(...)
• Vagal Tone
  Variability in heart rate at rest that is associated with respiratory patterns. Vagal tone reflect the functioning of the vagus nerve, which is the 10^th cranial nerve and a core component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates heart rate in response to signals of safety and interest.
• Vagus Nerve
  Also known as cranial nerve X, it is primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system that reduces heart rate, blood pressure, sweating and stimulates digestion. It also controls some mouth movements.
• Vasopressin
  Also known as antidiuretic hormone, vasopressin is a potent endogenous hormone which is responsible for regulating plasma osmolality and volume. It acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain to control circadian rhythm, thermoregulation, and adrenocorticotrophic hormone release (ACTH).
• Ventral Tegmental Area
  A midbrain structure and starting point of the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system involved in reward, motivation and addiction.
• Ventrial Palladium
  A basal ganglia structure located close to the limbic system involved in reward, motivation, inhibition and locomotion.
• Vigour
  Vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s work, and persistence also in the face of difficulties. Along with dedication and absorption, vigor is a component of engagement. Vigor is a positive affect state(...)
• Wanderlust
  A strong desire to travel that begins with early, and varied travel experiences and continues and inspires future travel behaviour.
• Worry
  A cognitive process involved in the experience of anxiety that serves to maintain high levels of vigilance for personal danger. Compared with anxiety, worry is more closely associated with problem-solving (confidence, approach rather than avoidance of a problem and personal control of the(...)
• Xenophobia
  A form of attitudinal, affective and behavioural prejudice toward immigrants and those perceived as foreign. Recent definitions of the term suggest that the fear of foreigners (a central element of xenophobia) is linked with ethnocentrism – the attitude that one’s own group or culture is(...)
• Zeal
  Determined conviction for an idealistic cause that craves consensus and is intolerant of dissent. Zeal may take the form of value convictions, communal commitment, closed-minded certainty, angry jingoism, religious fervor, or political extremism.