Unfortunately, they don’t teach you empathy in school or college. Whatever you know about human emotions was learned from your practical experience, and very often, it’s not enough. Moreover, the inability to understand what your partner feels or a failure to deal with your own emotions can lead to serious consequences.

Empathy and the knowledge of how people’s emotions work are used not only in psychology but in almost every profession. And while you’ll learn more about them directly from HR courses or online NLP master practitioner training, indirectly they’re necessary everywhere, both in your private and professional life, irrespective of what field you work in: medicine, web-design, SMM, law, journalism, engineering, etc.

Don’t worry, it’s not that challenging to learn more about human emotions. To make it easier for you, we’ve prepared a whole article about the impact that basic emotions have on our behavior.

Happiness

What Is It?

Happiness is the emotion we seek the most.

How often have you heard “be happy” in your birthday wishes? How often have you wished it to someone else? And it’s natural – because happiness is a pleasant feeling.

If you’re happy, it means that you’re satisfied with your life, you’re well, you’re grateful for something, joyful, maybe even ecstatic. However, nowadays, it’s often hard to detect whether you’re really happy.

How Does It Affect You?

Happy people usually look relaxed, smile a lot and speak in a pleasant tone of voice. Happiness has a positive impact on your physical and mental health and helps you deal with problems. Nevertheless, a desire to feel happy all the time is overrated – it’s healthy to experience all emotions.

Sadness

What Is It?

Very often, sadness is not something you’d like to feel. Grief, hopelessness, disappointment, dampened mood – all those are companions of sadness. But while it’s not something pleasant, it’s still something all people experience from time to time.

How It Affects You?

Sad people are usually in a bad mood. They often cry, stay quiet, withdraw from interacting or communicating with other people. While sadness is a common basic emotion, if not dealt with responsibly, it can lead to severe psychological problems or issues like depression.

Disgust

What Is It?

Disgust can manifest itself in different ways. You can be disgusted by unpleasant smells, sights or tastes, but also by what other people may say, do, or even look like. It’s said that disgust has evolved as a reaction to something that might be harmful or fatal.

How Does It Affect You?

If you’re disgusted by something, you’ll usually turn away from this object or person, wrinkle your nose or curl your lips, retch or even vomit. This is the emotion that can make you dislike someone because of what they do – for example, if your colleague has an inappropriate relationship with your boss and it disgusts you.

Surprise

What Is It?

Surprise is probably one of the shortest emotions you can experience. It takes only a second to get surprised. This emotion is a reaction to something unexpected happening, positive as well as negative.

How Does It Affect You?

Surprise is characterized by specific facial expressions, like raising the brows or widening the eyes; physical responses, like jumping back or up; and vocal reactions like screaming or yelling.

Fear

What Is It?

Fear is a powerful emotion. It can rule your life without you even knowing about it. It has evolved as a way to deal with something dangerous and a trigger for your fight-or-flight response.

How Does It Affect You?

When you’re scared, your muscles become tense, your heart rate and respiration increase, and you become more alert. Typical physical reactions include widening the eyes, pulling back the chin, rapid breathing and, most often, attempting to avoid the threat – even if the thing that scared you doesn’t exist or is illogical.

Anger

What Is It?

Anger can often be your response to fear or dangerous situations. It’s inclined as a way to protect yourself. Just like fear, it plays a part in your fight-or-flight response. Hostility, agitation, frustration, antagonism against others – all those you can experience when you’re angry with someone or something.

How Does It Affect You?

Anger often makes you turn away, yell, swear or kick objects. And while it seems unpleasant, it’s often a good emotion, as it helps you clarify the situation (for example, your position in a relationship). However, anger can be dangerous when uncontrolled, because it can lead to violence and abuse.

A Final Note

You may be familiar with Inside Out – a 2015 movie about human emotions and one of the most accurate portrayals of how our feelings impact our daily lives. If you want to become more empathetic, the first step would be watching the movie: it can seriously change your view on what part emotions play in our lives. And after you’ve watched it, it’s time to move on to the practical side – how, when, and where to use this information

Emotions are everywhere – and you need to know how to recognize them at all times. Fortunately, with the six basic emotions, it’s not that challenging – and you can find the most important information about how to recognize them and how they impact your life in the article above.

We hope that it was helpful. And good luck with your future empathy practice.