Abstract
Many psychologists think that there are few basic emotions, and most emotions are combinations of these few. Here we advance a hypothesis that the number of principally different emotions is near infinite. We consider emotions as mental states with hedonic content, indicating satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Basic emotions correspond to bodily signals, and there are relatively few of them. Our hypothesis is that a large number of emotions are related to the knowledge instinct (KI, or a need for knowledge). KI drives the mind to fit mental representations to cognitive experiences and to resolve mental contradictions. Discomfort due to holding contradictory knowledge elements are known as cognitive dissonances. We emphasize that cognitive dissonances involve specific emotions. The number of cognitive dissonances is combinatorial in terms of elements of knowledge. Correspondingly, the number of these knowledge-related emotions is very large. We report experimental results on measuring these emotions and indicating that emotions of cognitive dissonance exist. We also make a step toward proving that these emotions are different from basic emotions in principle, and outline future research directions toward proving that their number is large.
Highlights
Emotions are topics of much discussion in psychological literature, their mechanisms and functions are subjects of controversy (Ekman, 1999; Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008)
Choice decisions appear to be made in the hedonic dimension of consciousness (Cabanac et al, 1997, 2002, 2011); the hedonic experience takes place as an actual or an expected reward
In this paper we made a step toward exploring a new type of emotions, aesthetic emotions related to dissatisfaction of the knowledge instinct, or emotions of cognitive dissonances (CD) related to contradictions between two pieces of knowledge
Summary
Emotions are topics of much discussion in psychological literature, their mechanisms and functions are subjects of controversy (Ekman, 1999; Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008). Psychological functions of emotions have been related to social functioning and associated with facial expressions (Ekman, 1957), emotions have been related to survival (Plutchik, 1962), and to mental states (Ortony et al, 1987). We consider emotions as mental states with hedonic content (Cabanac, 2002) that indicates satisfaction and dissatisfaction of instinctual drives (Grossberg & Levine, 1987). Most psychologists consider other emotions as combinations of the basic emotions (Plutchik, 1962; Ekman, 1999; Ortony & Turner, 1990; Izard, 1992)
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