What is the primary emotions?

William McDougall, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

William McDougall answers

The primary emotions are those specific qualitative experiences that accompany the working of our instinctive impulses — each instinct, when excited, yielding its own distinctive feeling-tone, recognizable and irreducible to any other.¹ I first formulated this relation clearly in my Social Psychology, and though many psychologists have since raised objections to the view that the primary emotions are essentially indicators of instinctive impulses at work, not one of those objections has seemed to me to carry weight; and the formulation has been very widely accepted.²

The list runs as follows: flight yields fear; repulsion yields disgust; curiosity yields wonder; pugnacity yields anger; self-abasement yields subjection; self-assertion yields elation; the parental instinct yields tenderness; the social instinct yields loneliness or nostalgia when thwarted; the food-seeking instinct yields appetite or craving; acquisition yields the feeling of ownership; construction yields the feeling of creativeness; and laughter yields amusement.³

These are primary in the strict sense — they arise directly from the exercise of a single instinct, and they serve to indicate to our fellows the nature of the impulse at work, evoking in them the same instinctive attitude and emotional excitement.⁴ Beyond these, I distinguish two further classes: the blended or secondary emotions, which arise when two instinctive impulses are simultaneously excited, and the derived emotions.⁵

The conflict between fear and curiosity — horses in a meadow showing now aversion, now attraction — illustrates the secondary class plainly enough.⁶ And beneath all these specific qualities runs a more general feeling of excitement, common to all states of instinctive arousal, which together with the organic sensations — the beating heart, the hurried breath, the coldness of the skin in fear — contributes to determine the peculiar quality of each emotion.⁷

Sources

1. Hitherto we have discussed only the emotional experiences that accompany our instinctive strivings. These perhaps may, without serious risk of misunderstanding, be spoken of as 'emotions,' that is to say, as recognizable modes of experience, and they may be appropriately called 'the primary emotions.'

   An Outline of Psychology

2. Since the relation between these primary qualities of emotion and the several instinctive impulses was first clearly formulated in my 'Social Psychology,' many psychologists have raised objections to this view... But no one of these objections has seemed to me to carry weight; and the formulation is so obviously true to any unprejudiced mind that it has been very widely accepted.

   An Outline of Psychology

3. Social or gregarious instinct — Feeling of loneliness, of isolation, nostalgia. Food-seeking (hunting) — Appetite or craving in narrower sense (gusto). Acquisition (hoarding instinct) — Feeling of ownership, of possession (protective feeling). Construction — Feeling of creativeness, of making, of productivity. Laughter — Amusement (jollity, carelessness, relaxation).

   An Outline of Psychology

4. The primary 'emotion' is then an indicator of the instinctive impulse at work; its bodily expressions serve to indicate the nature of the impulse to our fellows and to evoke in them the same instinctive impulse, attitude, and emotional excitement.

   An Outline of Psychology

5. Beside these we have to recognize two other principal classes of emotions, namely, the blended or secondary emotions and the derived emotions.

   An Outline of Psychology

6. We have already noted the fact that two instinctive impulses may be excited simultaneously; as when an animal's behavior is clearly the expression of a conflict and alternation between the aversion of fear and the attraction of curiosity. Horses in a meadow often exhibit such behavior unmistakably.

   An Outline of Psychology

7. Part of this intensity seems to be due to a general feeling of excitement corresponding to the diffused excitement of the nervous system... Beside this feeling of excitement we can discover, by introspective analysis of each emotion, the organic sensations, due to the stimulation of sensory nerves by the visceral adjustments, and the kinaesthetic sensations of tension and strain caused by the strong action of the various muscles.

   Physiological Psychology