ae" oe i oe oe oe ok on oe so. COGNITION AND EMOTION, 1992, 6 (94), 169-200 An Argument for Basic Emotions Paul Ekman University of California, San Francisco, U.S.A. Emotions are viewed as having evolved through their adaptive value in dealing with fundamental lifesasks. Each emotion has unigue features signal, physiology, and antecedent events. Each emotion also has character, istics in common with other emotions: rapid onset, short duration, unbidden occurrence, automatic appraisal, and coherence among responses, These shared and unique characteristics are the product of our evolution, sod Aistinguish emotions from other effective phenomena, INTRODUCTION In this article I reach beyond what is empirically known, to consider what the evidence suggests is likely to be found. What I present is more of a research agenda than a theory about emotion, although theory is involved 1 will indicate where I think the evidence is clear, where it is tentative, where itis merely anecdotal but seems persuasive, and where I am simply extrapolating or guessing ‘The logic which underlies this effor which arose when I and others Ft is my attempt to answer questions found evidence, more than 20 years ago, that certain facial expressions of emotion appeared to be universal (for a recent review of that work see Ekman, 19 i reject forced me to Requests for reprints should be sent to Paul Ekman, University of California - San Francisco, 401 Pamasus, San Francisco, CA 94143-0984, US. 1 thank Richard Davidson, Phoebe Ellsworth, Walls Richard Lazarus, Robert Levenson, Harriet Oster, {iteisms and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. I als thank the Editon ef ae ‘Special Issue, Nancy Stein and Keith Oatley, for their encouragement and helpful ects Preparation was supported by © Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of ‘Mental Health (MH06081), ce V. Friesen, Dacher Keliner, and Erika Rosenberg for ther helpful © 1992 Lawrence Eribaum Associates Limited170 EKMAN alternative framework which better fit my data, although I do not accept in which I use the adjecti have adopted and will explain he ‘explain each of these ideas in more detail. 1ose who describe separate emotions differ in terms of how many different basic emotion is Ithough there is considerable overlap, far more thar Orn and tum 0 acknowledge), and what specific characteristics they post such emotions share, Most Stay peeent tation will describe nine characteristics of the emotions of anger, fear, sadness, enjoyment, disgust, and wurprise- 1 wil so rae the eositany that contempt, shame, gilt, embarrasament, and awe may den be fen share these nine characteristics. To identity separate discrete emotions does not necessarily require that one aio take an evolutionary view of emotions: A socal constenne ae could allow for separate emotions without embracing the second meaning of the adjective "basic". Even the discovery of univenals mw oprenien ee antecedent events does not requie giving a major tle io evehoon Instead, one can attribute univesns to specie-consans leasing ec A third usage of the term “basic” is to postulate that other non-basc emotions are ‘combinations ofthe basic emotions, which may be called blends or mited emotional sates (Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Puchi, 1962; Tomkins, 1963; Tomkins & MeCarter, 1960), Teal ‘ot deal with this usage ofthe phrase basic emotions. Instead, my focus wl be upon the fet. {wo meanings of basic emotions—that there are separate discrete emotions, which have evolved to prepare us to deal with fundamental lfevasks. Iam grateful to K. Oxley for suggesting that | make clear these different ways in which the term basic has been used ‘in earlier writings (Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972) we made this same distinction in ferms of those who studied the recognition of emotion from the face in terms of emotion ‘categories ot emotion dimensions. =e Pee ee ee = = — —ioe" el oe de oe ee ee "ee of oe oh oe ie ah aoe ls oe BASIC EMOTIONS 171 learning which will usually occur for all me of culture (cf, Allport, 1924). In this Innate factors play a role in accounting for share, not speies-constan or speces-varatie ea ‘ays to describe these fundamental e-eare (this issue) say they are “universal human Predicaments, such as achievements, losses, frustrations, ete... [E]ach emotion thus prompts us in a direction which in the ‘course of evolution has done better than other solutions in Tecurring circumstances that are relevant to goats" QUID of “coenease anccmeeames, tht are are appraised and configured into core relational themes” (1981, p. 202) and gives examples of facing an immediate danger, experiencing. an i , progressing towards he realtone rea is issue) say that it ing. There are tellus that emotions impose... on nt world an interpretative landscape derived from the covariant Structure of the past..." Emotions they say (1990, pp. 407-408) deal with recurrent “. . adaptive situations[,} (flighting, falling in love, escaping Predators, confronting sexual infidelity, and so'on, each [of which] recur: red innumerable times in evolutionary history ..." Tobey and Cosmides emphasise what I consider the crucial element which distinguishes the emotions: Our appraisal of a current event is influenced by our ancestral ast, These different descriptions are quite compatible, each emphasising another aspect of the phenomenon. Common to all these views is the Presumption that emotions are designed to deal with inter-organismic encounters, between people or between people and other animals. Never. theless, itis important to note that emotions ean and do occur when we are not in the presence of others, and are not imagining other people. We can have emotional reactions to thunder, music, erotic activity, ete. Yet I believe